Abiquo 4.6 features

Abiquo 4.6 introduces the following new features:

Automatically create scaling actions

As the typical autoscaling scenario usually requires a standard configuration, when you define a scaling group in the UI, you can now select the option to automatically create autoscaling actions. After you save the scaling group, a new dialog will enable you to select the metrics to control the autoscaling actions. The platform will automatically create the alarms, alerts, and action plan to automatically scale in or out according to your thresholds. To help you keep track of your scaling actions, when you edit and update a scaling group, there is a new tab to display all the details of the autoscaling actions. The administrator can configure the default values to suit the platform installation. 

See the following related links:

• Configure default autoscaling actions

• Manage scaling groups for users to fully configure autoscaling

• Define a scaling group for users

Public cloud price list synchronization

Abiquo 4.6 can obtain pricing details from public cloud providers. The platform obtains and synchronizes the prices of hardware profiles for Linux instances with no pre-installed software. The platform will check that the enterprise has access to the appropriate regions and that it has a valid pricing model for the region. The platform will not retrieve hardware profile prices if the enterprise does not have pricing credentials.

There is a new Pricing tab to enter a separate set of public cloud credentials for pricing, and the option to use the same public cloud credentials that manage virtual resources. The platform obtains prices for Linux instances. In AWS, this feature will only work with a currency value of US Dollars, irrespective of the pricing model currency. When your tenant hierarchy contains resellers and key nodes, you may add enterprise properties to apply discounts and price factors. When you enter the pricing credentials, the platform will retrieve hardware profile prices from the provider. By default the platform will refresh hardware profile prices every 24 hours and the administrator may configure this interval for the platform. See Abiquo Configuration Properties#pricing. 

Backup pricing

Administrators can now apply prices to backup policies for VMs. In pricing for private cloud datacenters, there is a new tab for Backup policies. The prices apply to VMs with the backup policies assigned. The platform includes the prices of all VM backup policies in VM_PRICES, and as part of the estimated price for deploying a virtual appliance.

Azure VPNs

Users can now create VPNs in Microsoft Azure and connect to the Azure VPN gateway using the basic SKU for VPNs. Abiquo supports site-to-site connections, for example, from NSX to Azure. Azure automatically selects a compatible encryption value. Azure requires the public IP address of the first site's VPN in order to create the Azure VPN gateway, however, you can supply a dummy address and edit it later. The administrator can configure enterprise properties for tenants that will create Azure VPNs. See Configure Azure VPNs.

Set resource allocation limits per provider

Abiquo 4.6 enables you to create allocation limits per provider. In public cloud providers, this means the total resources for the enterprise in all regions of the provider. In vCloud Director it means the total resources for the enterprise per endpoint URL. In Abiquo 4.6, the limits are set for the whole provider or endpoint. In previous versions, the limits at the provider level were a shortcut to set the default allocation limits for each region of the provider. To enable grouping by provider and set defaults per provider, see Group public cloud regions by provider or endpoint

Multicloud infrastructure privileges

Abiquo 4.6 introduces new privileges to separate the display of the Infrastructure view for private and public cloud. The two original infrastructure privileges have been changed to apply to private cloud only. The two new public cloud privileges are similar to the private cloud ones. They enable the user to access infrastructure view for public cloud regions and to view the details of public cloud regions. For full details of the privileges, see Changes to privileges#4.6.0 and Privileges

New public cloud regions in Amazon and Azure

Abiquo 4.6 introduces support for the AWS China Northwest region. As for other regions in China, separate credentials are required. Abiquo 4.6 also introduces support for new ARM regions in Johannesburg (South Africa North) and Cape Town (South Africa West). Abiquo 4.6.3 introduces support for the new ARM region in Dubai.

Asynchronous tasks and display task progress

Abiquo 4.6 introduces asynchronous tasks to create and delete virtual datacenters, and to create, edit and delete VPNs. This means that the user does not have to wait for these operations to complete before they can continue working on the platform. You can display the progress of tasks in the user interface in Events view on the Tasks tab. The platform's api-java-client now supports asynchronous tasks.

Changes to Discovery Manager remote service

The Discovery Manager remote service now performs all resource discovery tasks and some resource management tasks in private and public cloud. It replaces the previous version of the Discovery Manager and the Cloud Provider Proxy, which the platform will no longer use. The name of the Discovery Manager remote service has changed from “NODECOLLECTOR” to “NARS” and the web application has changed from "nodecollector" to "nars". The platform logs this remote service in the "nars" logs, which replaces the "nodecollector" and "cpp" logs.

The platform upgrade will automatically upgrade the remote services. Administrators can then remove the old remote service "nodecollector" and "cpp" web apps. See Abiquo configuration properties#nars

Monitoring improvements

In Abiquo 4.6, the monitoring system has been improved to better support large numbers of VMs. The improvements were made based on the results of a simulation where a script deployed VMs and modified metrics to activate and deactivate alarms and alerts.

Default firewalls for virtual datacenters

Abiquo 4.6.1 enables you to define a default firewall for a virtual datacenter where firewall policies are available. When the user creates a VM, the platform will assign the default firewall. The firewall ruleset applies to VMs, not individual NICs on the VMs.  However, it is possible to exclude networks from the VM firewall. Changes to the firewall ruleset will apply to every VM in the virtual datacenter with the default firewall. 

Private IP reservation

Abiquo 4.6.1 introduces the private IP reservation feature to prevent users from assigning reserved IPs to VMs within Abiquo. The platform does not display reserved IPs to allow users to select them for VMs. You can only assign reserved IPs to VMs from outside of Abiquo, for example, using a script. To manage this feature, the user requires the Manage private IP reservation privilege. See also Note about reserved private IPs for vCenter with DVS

Move a VM to a different VDC

Abiquo 4.6.1 introduces a new feature to move a deployed VM to a virtual datacenter within the same Abiquo datacenter. The target VDC must have the same hypervisor type. If the VM is not deployed, the Move VM button will allow you to Move the VM to another virtual appliance in the same virtual datacenter.

Create more than one VDC in NSX ECMP

Abiquo 4.6.1 introduces context properties to enable administrators to control configuration depending on the context. For the NSX ECMP plugin, for example, each VDC requires its own range of uplink IPs. Uplink IPs were previously set using enterprise properties, but this only allowed the administrator to create one VDC per enterprise without changing the properties. In Abiquo 4.6.1, if a property is not set at the enterprise or system level, the user will be able to enter the property when creating the entity. The creation will fail but a dialog will open where you can enter the required properties.

Support for more guest operating systems on VMware

Abiquo 4.6.1 introduces more operating systems for VMware including support for new guest identifiers available in vSphere version 6.7+. It is now easier to specify Windows 10 Server using the name of the operating system, for example, WINDOWS_SERVER_2016 gives “windows9Server64Guest” as the guestIdentifer of VMware. See Guest operating system definition for VMware.

Dell EMC Networker backup plugin

Abiquo 4.6.1 introduces a new backup plugin to support Dell EMC Networker. For the latest documentation of this feature, see Configure Dell EMC Networker backup plugin.

Allow access to VM initial passwords

Abiquo 4.6 introduces a new privilege to allow access to the initial password of VMs. As in previous versions, the VM owner can always access the initial password for their own VMs by clicking the key button on the VM control panel. To allow another user to access all initial passwords for the VMs in their tenant, assign the "Retrieve VM initial password" privilege. 

Changes to Azure CSP credentials

Microsoft changed the authentication method for CSP customers, which affected the billing dashboard and the public cloud price list synchronization features. CSP customers will need to obtain an authentication code and use it along with the application ID and secret key to call the Azure AD Tokens API to obtain a refresh token. In addition, Microsoft has also changed the look and feel of the Azure portal. See Obtain Azure ARM credentials and Display Azure billing data

Dashboard improvements

Abiquo 4.6.1 introduces some changes to the styling using CSS of Abiquo dashboards and the content of the dashboards. To customize the color of the background of the widget panels, use the .widgets-container class selector CSS in your theme style sheet and replace the color as required. Improvements to graphs and the contents of grids

Detect vCenter management IPs

Abiquo can manage VMware hosts at different levels, as ESXi hosts, vCenter server hosts, and vCenter clusters. When adding vCenter server hosts to the platform, the administrator selects from a list of host IPs. Abiquo 4.6.1 can filter the list of IPs to ensure the administrator selects an appropriate IP. When adding vCenter clusters to the platform, the administrator selects the cluster ID. For Abiquo 4.6.1 you can define filters to select the required host IPs for remote access, for example, to only use the network interfaces for management traffic.

Improvements to vCloud Director Integration

Abiquo 4.6.1 supports cores per socket in vCloud Director. In Abiquo 4.6.1, the platform has improved management of VMs and templates with multiple disks in vCloud Director. The platform is now able to: detect all the disks of a VM and update disk info as part of the periodic check; take instances of all disks in a VM; and use multi-disk templates. When the user creates a VM with a multi-disk template, the platform will display one disk only. Then when the user deploys the VM, the synchronization will recognize all the disks with the correct capacity, sequence, and controller.     

Protect enterprise properties with types

Abiquo 4.6.3 introduces types for enterprise properties, which facilitates the use of properties in hierarchical organisation models (such as reseller models). Types allow administrators to reserve some properties for internal use while delegating reseller or enterprise admins the ability to view or manage other properties. In Abiquo, administrators store tenant details and metadata using enterprise properties. Administrators with the privilege to "Manage enterprise properties" can set the property types. Each property can have a type of Hidden, Read/write, or Read only. Administrators without the "Manage enterprise properties" privilege can only edit read/write properties and display read-only properties.

Usage data in VM hours from the API

The new "cost usage" API endpoint provides usage data in hours for the platform. This feature requires the “Manage bills” privilege. It retrieves and stores some data from the Abiquo Accounting module on a daily basis. This data in hours is categorized by resources. You can also filter, access, and manage this data from the action endpoints under cost usage.

Control VDC default roles for enterprises in locations

Abiquo 4.6.3 introduces a new privilege for managing the default role and a minimum default role for creating VDCs to ensure that users cannot create VDCs that they cannot work with.

JSON templates to define action plan entries

Abiquo 4.6.3 now provides JSON templates for Action plans. This feature defines the data attributes for actions in JSON format to make it easier to create action plans with the API. The UI also uses this feature and you can customize or translate the UI labels, for example, to change the label for “quantity” set the value of “jsonschema.property.quantity” in the label files. For API documentation of the method to retrieve the template, see: https://wiki.abiquo.com/api/latest/ActionPlansResource.html#list-action-plan-entry-templates.