Manage storage in public cloud

1 View and onboard storage volumes in public cloud
2 Create a storage volume in public cloud
3 Modify a storage volume in public cloud
4 Move a storage volume to another virtual datacenter in public cloud
5 Move a storage volume to the public cloud region
6 Delete a storage volume in public cloud

This page describes how to manage storage including external storage volumes in public cloud.

In private cloud, users can work with hard disks. For more details, see VM storage

View and onboard storage volumes in public cloud

In public cloud regions, for Amazon, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, you can work with virtual storage to create volumes to attach to your VM.

Privileges: Manage virtual storage elements

Volumes of external storage can be persistent and independent of VMs. Volumes are

EBS disks in AWS
Managed Disks in Azure
Zonal persistent disks in Google Cloud Platform
Block volumes in OCI

To display all volumes of your tenant, including recently onboarded volumes:

Go to Virtual datacenters → Volumes
Select All virtual datacenters

The platform will display all volumes from public and private cloud.

To display all volumes in the platform in a public cloud region:

Go to Cloud virtual datacenters view → Locations
Select the location
Go to Volumes

The platform will display all volumes in the public cloud region.

To onboard volumes from a public cloud region and synchronize existing volumes,

Go to Cloud virtual datacenters view → Locations
Select the location
Go to Volumes
Click the double arrow synchronize button

To display all volumes in a virtual datacenter:

Go to Cloud virtual datacenters view
Select a virtual datacenter
Go to Volumes

Notes:

To onboard and synchronize volumes, your user must be able to access All virtual datacenters in the tenant.
By default, the platform will destroy the VM system disk (hard disk) when you undeploy or delete the VM.
In the Amazon console, when you create a VM (an Amazon Instance), you can select an EBS disk and configure it as "Delete on Termination". This means that the provider will destroy the disk when you terminate the VM. If you onboard a VM with these disks into Abiquo, when you undeploy or delete the VM, the platform will destroy the disks. To keep the disks, before you undeploy the VM, detach the disks from the VM in Abiquo, and the platform will synchronize them as volumes.
In OCI, Abiquo imports shared volumes that are attached to a VM. You cannot create shared volumes in Abiquo
- For each VM using the volume, Abiquo reports a new volume
- You can import shared volumes attached to a VM only
- You cannot reconfigure or delete shared volumes because you cannot detach them from VMs
- You can resize shared volumes

Create a storage volume in public cloud

See Create a volume

Modify a storage volume in public cloud

To modify a storage volume in public cloud:

Go to Virtual datacenters → Volumes
Select the volume and click the edit button

If the volume is attached to a deployed VM, you can also edit its size in Azure, AWS, and GCP, and its tier in Azure and AWS.
To make changes to volumes in Azure, the VM must be in the "deallocated" state.

Modify a storage volume from the Volumes tab.

Screenshot: AWS

Screenshot: Azure

Field	Description

Field	Description
Virtual datacenter	In Azure, volumes will be onboarded by location and you can assign them to a VDC
Name	The name of the volume
Description	A description of the volume
Total Size	Enter the volume size. You are allowed to increase the size of the volume only. After you change the size, remember to enlarge the partitions and file system.
Tier	Datastore tier that the volume belongs to. You can modify this in AWS and Azure
Availability zone	Read only value
Resource group	Read only value
Controller type	The platform applies the controller type in OCI only
Controller	In public cloud, the platform does not apply the controller
Encrypted	In AWS (EBS) and OCI you can select the option to use encryption when you create a volume.

Expanding a disk can damage the data or operating system installed on the disk.
You may need to apply additional operating system tools or processes before you can use an expanded disk, for example, resizing partitions and filesystems.

After resizing a disk, remember to resize the partitions and filesystems.
For example, with the Linux ext3 filesystem, you can execute the following commands when logged into a shell on the VM:

 $ umount /dev/xxx (/dev/xxx is the partition of the resized volume, inside the VM)
 $ parted /dev/xxx
 # resize Y start end (Y is the partition number, and start/end of the partition varies in each case)
 $ resize2fs /dev/sdx

Move a storage volume to another virtual datacenter in public cloud

You can move volumes between virtual datacenters if they are not attached to a VM.

The source and destination virtual datacenters must belong to the same public cloud region and cloud tenant.

To change the virtual datacenter of a volume:

Go to Virtual datacenters → Volumes
Drag the volume into the new virtual datacenter in the virtual datacenters list.
Click Confirm to complete the move.

Move a storage volume to the public cloud region

You can move volumes to the public cloud region if they are not attached to a VM. This means that they will be available to move to all virtual datacenters in the public cloud region in the same tenant.

To move a volume to the public cloud region:

Go to Virtual datacenters → Volumes
Drag the volume into All in the virtual datacenters list.
Click Confirm on the popup to complete the move.

Delete a storage volume in public cloud

You can delete or remove volumes that are NOT attached to a VM.

To delete a volume:

Go to Virtual datacenters → Volumes
Select the volume and click the trash delete button

When you delete a storage volume in public cloud, it will be deleted in the public cloud region and all the data on the volume will be destroyed.

Related pages

Work with VMs
- Manage virtual machines
- Configure virtual machines
  - VM storage
Administer virtual resources