If the cloud provider supports virtual datacenters, such as AWS VPCs, you can onboard them. After you onboard the virtual datacenters, you can synchronize them and the virtual resources. If the cloud provider does not support virtual datacenters, then you can onboard the resources from the public cloud regions, such as RackSpace and OpenStack regions.
Privilege: Manage virtual datacenters
Before onboarding virtual resources, administrators must do the following steps:
- Create the public cloud region to import from
- Allow the tenant access to the public cloud region (Enterprise → Datacenters → Allow datacenter)
- Register the tenant's credentials for the public cloud provider (Enterprise → Credentials)
To onboard virtual resources from public cloud:
Onboard virtual datacenters from public cloud
To onboard a virtual datacenter:
- For the public cloud region, the platform will display a drop-down list of virtual datacenter entities. For example, VPCs in AWS or Virtual networks in Azure. Select an entity and click the Synchronize button.
- The platform will load all of the elements into a virtual datacenter so they can be managed. For example, from AWS, the platform will import the VPC, VMs, subnet with IP addresses, public IPs, firewalls and load balancers, which will be named with their provider identifiers.
The platform will detect a public subnet by the presence of a custom route table and NAT gateway, and the platform will mark the public subnet with a globe symbol and set the Internet gateway flag for this subnet. Users with bespoke network configurations should check the results of the synchronization. The platform will synchronize private and public IP addresses even if they are not in use by VMs, and mark the IP addresses in use by provider entities with provider identifiers.
The platform will import VM templates. If the VM template cannot be found, the VM will be created in the platform with no registered template. In this case, to save a copy of your VM disk as a template, so you can recreate the VM, make an Abiquo instance of the VM.
If you delete a synchronized VDC, the platform will delete it in the provider. Always check which is the default VDC in your provider, e.g. AWS default VPC, because it may be inconvenient to delete this VPC
If your enterprise does not have valid credentials for the public cloud provider, when you delete public cloud entities in the platform, they will still exist in the public cloud provider
View classic VMs
To view classic VMs, for example in AWS these are EC2 classic VMs, click the "See classic" link.
Synchronize VDCs and resources
During VDC synchronization, the platform will ensure that the resources in the platform and the provider are the same.
- It will delete entities in the platform that were deleted already in the provider
- However, it will maintain resources attached to undeployed VMs in the platform
- For example, if a user has an undeployed VM with IPs and a load balancer, then after the synchronization, these resources are attached to the VM in the platform only
- Warning: These resources are "free" in the provider. Users working directly in the provider could assign these resources to other VMs. This will cause a conflict and error at deploy time
To update a virtual datacenter and onboard any changes made in the provider, synchronize the virtual datacenter:
- Go to Virtual datacenters → V. Datacenters list
- Beside the virtual datacenter name, click the double arrow Refresh button
You can also synchronize resources such as networks, public IPs, firewalls, and load balancers. To do this, go to the resource tab and click the straight double arrow Synchronize button. For more information, see the resource documentation.
Screenshot: Synchronize firewalls
Screenshot: Synchronize private networks in public cloud
Public cloud synchronization parameters
Note to System Administrators: For information about tuning public cloud synchronization, see Abiquo Configuration Properties.
Manage resources that were deleted directly in the provider
When administrators delete resources in the provider, the platform will display the resource name in light gray to indicate that the user cannot work with the resource. The resource types include:
- External networks
- Firewalls
- Classic firewalls
- Load balancers
- NAT network
- NAT IPs
To delete these resources (if they are not in use), select the resource and click the delete button.
Delete or release virtual resources in public cloud
The virtual resources that you onboarded or created in public cloud will be grouped with their associated virtual datacenters.
Before you begin:
- If you recently created virtual resources, such as load balancers, synchronize the virtual datacenter to ensure that the platform can find and delete all the dependencies of the virtual datacenter.
To delete onboarded resources in public cloud:
- Delete each virtual datacenter
- You can choose to delete each virtual datacenter in the platform only, or in the platform and the provider. If you delete in the platform only, the platform will automatically remove VMs, virtual appliances, load balancers, public IPs, and firewalls. Remember to check which is the default VDC in your provider, e.g. AWS default VPC, because it may be inconvenient to delete this VPC
If the enterprise does not have valid credentials for the public cloud provider, when you delete public cloud entities in the platform, they will continue to exist in the public cloud provider
Onboard from public cloud using the API
Abiquo API Feature
This feature is available in the Abiquo API. See VirtualDatacentersResource for synchronization and AllowedLocationsResource for retrieval of virtual datacenters and VMs.
Onboard from public cloud regions without VDCs
If your public cloud provider does not support virtual datacenter entities, Abiquo will automatically onboard when you select the public cloud region.
Abiquo synchronizes virtual resources in public cloud regions for providers that do use virtual datacenters or similar entities, for example, OpenStack clouds and Rackspace. You can only synchronize these providers at the public cloud region level. You cannot synchronize a VDC or an individual resource, for example, a load balancer.
If Abiquo already has virtual resources on the platform for the provider, then these entities will already be part of a virtual datacenter. Abiquo will check if any new entities in the provider are related to the existing ones in Abiquo and place them in the existing virtual datacenter.
Abiquo will place all VMs and network resources that are not related to existing Abiquo virtual resources into a generic virtual datacenter. Abiquo names this virtual datacenter with the same name as the public cloud region, but the user can rename it. Abiquo will use this virtual datacenter for future synchronizations, adding or removing resources to match the cloud provider.
If the Abiquo integration with the provider supports entities that are not assigned to any virtual datacenter, such as firewalls, load balancers, or floating IPs, these may be loaded into Abiquo as unassigned entities.
If conflicts occur during synchronization, Abiquo will cancel the synchronization. This would occur if two VMs already exist in different VDCs but are related by a firewall or load balancer. Or if two firewall policies or load balancers exist in different virtual datacenters but are related by a VM.