Catalogue view

1 Introduction to the catalogue
2 Manage the catalogue using the API
3 Catalogue concepts
4 Catalogue symbols
5 VM template states
6 Template disk conversion states
7 Pages related to the catalogue

Introduction to the catalogue

The catalogue lets you offer your users a selection of software templates so they can deploy VMs with self-service. You can also offer blueprints for creating complete configurations in virtual appliances (VApp specs), and you can also create service configurations to register services for XaaS (Anything as a Service). And you can store scripts to configure VMs as script templates.

To access the catalogue, click the disk stack Catalogue button on the main menu.

Privileges: Access Catalogue view

For each datacenter or public cloud region, the platform displays the VM templates available to your enterprise. If the templates do not display, next to the datacenter name, click the round arrow refresh button.

Catalogue view

Manage the catalogue using the API

You can manage the software templates in the catalogue using the API.

API feature

This feature is available in the API. For datacenters, see DatacenterRepositoriesResource.
For datacenters and public cloud regions, see TemplateDefinitionsResource and TemplateDefinitionListsResource

And, of course, you can manage VApp specs, script templates, and XaaS using the API too.

Catalogue concepts

Concept	Description

Concept	Description
VM template	To deploy a VM, the platform uses a VM template and a hardware specification. A VM template consists of a VM template definition and VM template disk files, which include the system disk and any auxiliary disks.
VM template definition	The VM template definition includes information about the disks, the hardware, and product (additional metadata: name, description, icon, category, installed software). When you load a VM template definition and disk files into the Catalogue, the platform generates a VM template based on the information in the VM template definition. A VM template definition can only include one virtual system, but you can create systems with multiple VMs using virtual appliances within Abiquo. In a private cloud datacenter, you can create VM templates from a local OVA, or one or more disk files and definition (details or OVF).
Instance template	Abiquo Instances are templates created from copies of VM disks. You can use instances just like any other template for creating new VMs. In a datacenter, an instance is linked to the original main template. The main template is marked with an `M` symbol. An instance is marked with a secondary `S` symbol.
V2V conversion	In a private cloud datacenter, Virtual-to-Virtual conversion (V2V conversion) is a process that runs to convert a new template into the default format for each hypervisor in the platform. It runs when users download VM templates, create VM instances, or upload new templates. If a hypervisor supports more than one format, then templates that are not supported by the platform for this hypervisor will be converted to the default format. Other formats will not be converted. If you add templates before you add hypervisors, (meaning that no hypervisors present), Abiquo will convert templates into the default base formats of all hypervisors.
Owner enterprise	The enterprise in which a VM template or VApp spec was created
Virtual appliance specs	Virtual appliance specs (VApp specs) are blueprints of applications. Administrators can create VApp specs by saving the configuration of a group of VMs (in a virtual appliance) to the catalogue. The user can then select to the blueprint to automatically create a new configuration.
Service configurations	For XaaS (Anything as a Service), service configurations create a connection between Abiquo and a custom service. Select from a catalogue of services, and add basic configuration, such as the endpoint of your service and the entity in the UI where users will obtain the service.
Script templates	You can save bootstrap scripts to configure VMs as script templates, so you can add scripts to VM templates to reuse them in multiple VMs. As for a VM bootstrap script, your script templates must be compatible with cloud-init or cloudbase-init or similar, and they can use VM variables. When you change script templates, Abiquo will update VM templates using the script templates but it will not update VMs using the VM templates.

Catalogue symbols

The VM template icons in the Catalogue are marked with the following symbols.

Template type	Symbol	Description

Template type	Symbol	Description
Shared template		This software template can be used by all the enterprises listed in the template's scopes.
Main template		In private cloud, this template has secondary templates (which are also called instance templates). Click on the template to display the Instance template panel.
Secondary template		In private cloud, this template is a secondary template (or instance template). It is a copy of the selected disks of a VM created from the main template. You can create instances from VMs in the Virtual appliances view.
Deleted template		Also called an unavailable template. In private cloud, this template has one or more disks missing from the catalogue filesystem. In public cloud, the template is no longer available
Failed template		In private cloud, this template has a disk file that was not properly created.

For information about creating instance templates, see Save VM disks to create an instance template
For information about managing instances, see Manage VM templates | Manage instance templates in datacenters

VM template states

The platform derives template states from the states of the disks in the template. If any of the disks is in an error state, the template will also be in an error state. You can delete individual disks that are in an error state, but a template must always have one disk, even if it is in an error state.

Template disks can be in the following states.

IN PROGRESS: The platform has registered the template and is uploading or downloading a disk file to the catalogue
FAILED: the disk was not properly created because of an issue during its creation
UNAVAILABLE: the disk is defined in the template but not present in the catalogue.
- The platform will not allow an administrator to delete a template when it is used in VMs or has dependent instance templates. Instead, the platform will delete the template disk files to prevent further deploys.
- If an administrator replaces the disk file, then the platform makes the template available again.
DONE: The template is complete, although conversions to other hypervisors may not be present yet

The above list has the priority of the disk state in determining the template state. For example, if a template has any failed disks, the template will also be in the failed state, even if any of its other disks are unavailable or done.

Template disk conversion states

In private cloud, the platform will automatically convert VM template disks to enable users to work with them on all available hypervisors. The state of a disk conversion does not affect the state of the template.

The possible states of conversions are:

ENQUEUED
FINISHED
FAILED

To display the conversions of a template disk, edit the template, go to the Disks tab and select the disk.

Pages related to the catalogue

For a basic introduction to adding VM templates, see: Add virtual machine templates to Abiquo
For details of adding VM templates, see: Add VM templates to the catalogue
VM automation with cloud-init templates: Guest setup
Configuration pages
- VM repository folder
- In Modify a VM template, see Extended OVF support and template definition and OVF reference .
For details of how to create services configurations, see Abiquo XaaS
For details of how to create blueprints, see Manage virtual appliance specs
For details of how to create script templates, see Manage script templates