Abiquo Overview

Abiquo was designed to avoid dependence on any hypervisor. Not only are all major hypervisors fully and simultaneously supported, Abiquo allows conversion of virtual machines from one hypervisor to another in any combination, completely eliminating vendor lock-in with a single drag and drop operation.

Supported hypervisors include:

• VMware ESX and ESXi
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Citrix XenServer
• Virtual Box
• Xen
• KVM

Combines local and remote datacenters as well as hosted resources to create global Private, Public and Hybrid Clouds of unlimited complexity, all managed through a single pane of glass.

Hierarchical user management and role based permissions allow delegation of management tasks according to the organizations needs. Since any user’s view is limited to the hierarchy below them, Abiquo provides multi-tenancy with full isolation, whether to internal groups, or to external customers. A single Web-based management console is context sensitive to the role and permissions of the relevant user, reducing complexity and providing unparalleled ease of use.

Enables the organization to set, edit and manage business policies from a single, centralized policy editor that then completely automates the allocation of virtual resources across the physical infrastructure. Business policies can be set based on security, compliance, energy costs, savings as well as utilization and load balancing.

Empowers users with multi-tenant Virtual Enterprises that allow full control over server, storage and network resources. Each Virtual Enterprise manages its own role-based user group and operates within strictly enforced resource limits. Virtual Enterprise users are fully isolated from physical hardware allowing risk-free, self-service provisioning and management.

Define CPU, memory and storage limits for each Virtual Enterprise, including both hard (enforced) and soft (warning) levels for each. Since no Virtual Enterprise can exceed its allocated resource limit, there is no danger of users exceeding the capabilities of the physical infrastructure.

Works in conjunction with VMware tools like vCenter and vSphere to manage VMs and share resources. Bi-directional event driven integration keeps all management tools synchronized. Also provides deep integration with VMware’s vMotion, DRS and HA functionality ensuring Abiquo is automatically updated when other software moves a virtual machine to another server.

Automatic inventory of host machines identifies hardware characteristics and existing VMs. Organizations can progressively assign VMs to an Abiquo Virtual Enterprise or allow them to continue to be managed exclusively by existing hypervisor tools.

Automatically allocate network resources, such as public and private IP addresses from one or more defined pools to virtual appliances. Define a practically unlimited number of named VLANs to each Virtual Datacenter and configure them as desired. Each VM can have an unlimited number of Virtual Network Interfaces, connected to a different private VLAN or public network for total flexibility. Multiple public VLANs can also be defined including parameters at the rack level and usable tag ranges. Abiquo also supports multi-home networking on virtual appliances and gives greater control to Cloud operators to define and track named networks. Manage storage resources from popular standards and vendors such as OpenSolaris ZFS and LVM/iSCSi, allocating them to Virtual Enterprises and allowing Enterprise Administrators to perform volume management tasks, as well as allocation to specific virtual machines.

Abiquo supports public, shared and private libraries. Where permitted by role, users can capture and store virtual machine images, and even combine sets of VM images into a single appliance for easy re-deployment. Shared libraries allow the IT organization to define standard VM images, for example built to company anti-virus, directory and control requirements. Public VM images from reputable vendors can be downloaded for rapid deployment of complex systems, dramatically reducing implementation and evaluation times.

Allows the Abiquo GUI to be fully branded without any code changes. Colors and logos can be seamlessly changed within the GUI and more detailed changes can be easily made through a style file.

Abiquo can be fully installed on a live running system, irrespective of the hypervisors in use. It performs automatic inventory of both hardware and virtual machines, allowing for a simple deployment at whatever pace the organization desires.

Abiquo provides an industry-standard API that ensures enterprises can cost-effectively deploy and manage their Cloud resources centrally. Specifically, Abiquo offers a Cloud Operator API, inspired by Sun Public Cloud, enabling an Operator to run a dynamic, scalable cloud that is configured based on automated capacity rules.

The Abiquo solution is designed to scale to meet the needs of the largest organizations and yet it is equally at home in a small development lab with only a few machines to manage. Its stateless architecture provides three deployment models depending on scalability requirements. A single commodity server can manage hundreds of VMs. Split services across multiple servers can manage many thousands of VMs or use multiple management clusters to manage over 100,000 VMs. Abiquo is built on industry standards to operate in conjunction with other management tools, Web services, databases, storage systems and networking.