Manage virtual appliance specs

VMs

General information: hardware profiles, CPU, RAM, remote access and description

Same. If a matching hardware profile is not found, the platform will activate or create one, or the user can select another available hardware profile

Anti-affinity layers

VMs in layers

Same

Scaling groups

Scaling groups are not supported

VM templates

Template name is saved

The system matches the spec template name against the catalogue template name. The user selects from a list of templates with names that contain the spec template name. The match is done with an SQL %LIKE% command from the spec to the template, so spec template "m0n0" will match with "m0n0" and "m0n0wall" in the Catalogue. But spec template "m0n0wall" will not match with "m0n0" in the catalogue

Template auxiliary hard disks

Template system disks and other datastore hard disks and their tiers are saved

The platform will create template disks in order as in the template with no gaps in the sequence. Then empty additional hard drives and volumes will be added in the same order as in the base virtual appliance. The platform will search for datastore tiers by name, as for templates

Persistent VMs

Persistent VMs are not supported. (Use a VM from an instance of the persistent VM)

Private network, Private IPs

Save private network characteristics: network address and mask only. Save private IPs

The materialize process will present the addresses of the spec private networks. Abiquo will display matching networks in the virtual datacenter in green text, and ones that are not present in red text. Abiquo will display the number of private IPs to use in each network.

The user can choose to change any private network, even if it matches the spec network. The user can choose to create a new network (specifying the IP address, mask and gateway), or replace the network with an existing VDC network.

Network gateways

Abiquo will determine if a NIC has a gateway IP address and save this information in the spec

• If a NIC has a gateway IP address, when using an existing network, the materialize process will attempt to assign the network's gateway address to the NIC

• Abiquo will not assign the gateway IP address to a NIC that did not have this address in the original configuration

• If the materialize process is creating a new network, it will attempt to assign the same gateway address from the spec to the gateway NIC in the new network

Public network

Number of public IPs is saved

The materialize process will try to use public IPs that were already purchased by the enterprise. These public IPs will be momentarily quarantined during the materialization process. If not, the materialize process will purchase new public IPs. The public networks will be used in the order returned by the API. In public cloud, the platform will use floating IPs

External IPs

Not supported, except for basic support in VCD

If you create a spec containing an external IP, the materialize process will fail because the external IP is unsupported.

In vCloud, specs have basic support for external networks. The validation process will list the network, and you can select it and then continue with the process.
The platform will create the VApp correctly. Remember to ensure that there are enough external IP addresses available for the new virtual appliance

Unmanaged IPs

Not supported

If you create a spec containing an unmanaged IP, the materialize process will fail because the unmanaged IP is unsupported.

Volume (data)

Data on external storage volumes is not included. To use data on a volume, create an instance to save it to a template disk

• Empty volumes with the same specifications as the attached volumes are created. Empty volumes are named vappName-UUID

Volume (specifications)

The specifications, disk controller types, and tiers of the volumes are saved in private cloud

• Empty volumes with the same specifications as the attached volumes are created. Empty volumes are named vappName-UUID

• Volumes are attached to the same disk controller type as in the original VM. If this controller type is not compatible with the target hypervisor, then the platform will use the hypervisor default

• Matches tier names as for VM templates. If no storage tier is found, then the validate will fail. If the storage tier does not contain pools, then the volume create will fail.

Hard disk (data)

Data on hard disks attached to the VM is not included. To use data on a hard disk, create an instance to save it to the template

Empty hard disks with the same specifications as the attached hard disks are created. Empty disks are named Empty disk-UUID

Hard disk (specifications)

The specifications, disk controller types and tiers of the hard disks are saved in private cloud

• Empty hard disks with the same specifications as the attached hard disks are created. Empty disks are named Empty disk-UUID

• Hard disks are attached to the same disk controller type as in the original VM. If this controller type is not compatible with the target hypervisor, then the platform will use the hypervisor default

• Matches tier names as for VM templates. If no datastore tier is found, then the validate will fail. If the datastore tier does not contain datastores, then the deploy will fail.

Backup configuration

Configured backups are stored in private cloud

Backups are configured

Firewalls

Firewalls attached to VMs or load balancers are saved

• Access to a firewall integration is required to create firewalls in the new virtual appliance

• Users can edit firewall rules during virtual appliance creation

• Users should be aware of compatibility issues between providers

• If a VM has no firewall in the spec, and the virtual datacenter has a default firewall, then the platform will assign the default firewall to the VM

Load balancers

Load balancers attached to VMs are saved, including health checks and so on

• Access to a load balancer integration is required to create load balancers in the new virtual appliance

• Users should be aware of compatibility issues between providers

Monitoring (status)

• Monitoring status of fetch metrics is saved

• The selected metrics are saved

• Access to a monitoring server is required to retrieve metrics

• The materialize process creates built-in metrics of the exact same name ONLY and creates all custom metrics

Alarms and Alerts

Alarms and alerts are saved 

The materialize process creates all existing alarms and alerts, regardless of the existence of their corresponding metrics

VM variables

VM variables are saved

• The materialize process creates VMs with VM variables

• During the materialize process, users can edit the VM variables

Chef

Chef status, runlist and attributes are stored

• The materialize process sets the status and recipes

  • During the materialize process, users can edit the runlist and the attributes

VM bootstrap script

The VM startup script is saved

• The startup script is added to the new VM at the end of the materialize process

• After the materialize process, the user can edit the VM to modify the startup script