Disaster Recovery as a Service with Zerto for vCenter

Abiquo 5.2 has introduced the new DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) feature.

Abiquo DRaaS provides self-service disaster recovery for Abiquo users, adding its first new integration with Zerto for vCenter.

Disaster Recovery allows people responsible for infrastructure to protect resources by having them continually replicated to another part of their infrastructure – which could be a different host, cluster, data centre, or cloud.

Having Disaster Recovery through Abiquo ensures your company the following benefits:

• DRaaS makes your cloud management easier and enables your IT force to concentrate on core tasks. 
• Permits an easy implementation of the standard DRaaS configuration of Zerto Protection Managers for vCenter.
• Offers the chance to save money and gain protection over in-house Disaster Recovery programs.
• Gives your company full access and control to secure all your cloud resources.

Abiquo DRaaS allows cloud administrators and MSPs to have their users access DR as a service. They don’t need to worry about how it works, or to access a different portal (which may not be multi-tenant) or ensure that they only have access to a limited set of functionalities. 

Making DRaaS available through Abiquo ensures users can treat DRaaS the same way as any other cloud function in the platform, such as deploying VMS, managing virtual networks, backups and so on. This means that companies who let their developers create virtual infrastructure (i.e. DevOps) can ensure that these critical resources are protected without needing to go into a traditional IT change process.

With Abiquo DRaaS, MSPs can get many advantages over in-house disaster recovery programs. Abiquo now makes it easier for MSPs to integrate disaster recovery systems into the multi-cloud platform, activate or deactivate DR protection for their VMs and price DR protection to include it in the cost estimates and billing for their customers.

The administrator can assign DR privileges to specific user roles and limit the number of VMs a tenant can protect.

Abiquo 5.2 introduces new UI elements such as Protection Managers representing the Zerto Virtual Managers, which links protection managers with virtual datacenters in Abiquo.

There is a new button on the VM control panel to enable or disable VMs Disaster Recovery protection, which will save administrators a lot of time. Your VMs will be secured in one click! 

As part of the feature, in the backend, Abiquo creates Zerto Protection Groups and one Protection Group for the VMs in each Abiquo virtual appliance. 

All these features and data are all available in the API too.

Read the complete release notes to learn all about Abiquo DRaaS on our wiki site.

In summary to run a DHCP Server or a Gateway on a VM on ESXi, we will need VLAN support.

In order to create VLAN interfaces on a VM and listen to them, we need to attach a VM’s virtual NIC to a Virtual Machine Port Group with VLAN 4095, which represents all VLANs.

Before you begin, remember that you may also need to configure the VM. An 802.1Q VLAN trunking driver is usually loaded by default on Windows and Linux. Then select an E1000 Ethernet driver for maximum compatibility with all virtualization technologies.

Follow these steps to create the Port Group with VLAN 4095 using vSphere Client v6.5:

1. Log in to the vSphere Client and select the host from the Inventory panel.
2. Go to Networks
3. From the Actions menu, select Add Networking.
4. Select “Virtual Machine Port Group for a Standard Switch” and click Next.
5. Select “New standard switch” or select one of the existing vSwitches. The selected vSwitch should attach to the service network, which holds the VLANs for the VMs. Click Next.
6. In the Connection settings section, enter a Network label to identify the port group you are creating.

Note: The network label can contain up to 63 characters

For the VLAN ID, select “All (4095)”. Click Next.

You can now configure your hypervisor in the multi-cloud platform. Select the Network service type for the vSwitch interface.

The platform will now use this port group when it receives DHCP tagged demands from your deployed VMs.

All companies pursue the same objective: the expansion of their business. However, to make this happen, technology is needed with the aim of achieving a strong market position and additional competitive advantage. 

The idea is to prosper in a world in which the Internet of things, data analysis and the cloud offer new opportunities to, both, evolve and increase revenue. 

Cloud orchestration seeks to resolve problems that are an integral part of a system by connecting a series of workflows. The aim is to reach efficiency, being automation another solution to complete tasks swiftly and achieve the desired outcome. 

Cloud orchestration and companies

When it comes to automated processes and workflows that need to function together effectively, managing different systems in the cloud may become a big challenge for companies. This is where cloud orchestration software comes in, based on a unique platform where all the necessary automated functions can be configured and controlled. 

Cloud orchestration software, such as Abiquo, helps to manage each cloud service – from cloud data storage to application monitoring or network balancing –and it iis supported by an automated process. Cloud orchestration is designed to manage all these tasks simply and easily. 

Cloud orchestration helps in the automation of processes and so to establish cost and budget projections to choose the most appropriate solution with no loss of service or quality. 

Nevertheless, when using cloud orchestration, companies need to have a perfectly balanced network management and application plan that is manageable and easy to use on a day-to-day basis.

There has been a sharp growth in multi-cloud platforms and services recently. Large European companies have deemed the implementation of these services as a means of saving time, money, and effort, establishing the essential mechanisms for managing such environments at the same time. 

When it comes to adopting dynamic processes to facilitate decision-making, companies need orchestration and integration services in order to achieve a unified vision of the organisation’s data. In this way, cloud orchestration allows the rapid and progressive adoption of cloud services. 

IT managers understand that moving to multi-cloud environments involves the use of orchestration tools to leverage digital transformation more effectively. Consequently, companies use these mechanisms to obtain greater control and greater visibility, while improving user experience and saving costs. 

The point is that an orchestration system, which permits to handle significant workloads from different clouds maximising their benefits, has become an unstoppable trend. 

Cloud Orchestration: Things to Consider

Information technology aims to automate multiple tasks and to interrelate them in order to obtain effective results: this is what orchestration is all about. Although they are different concepts, the terms automation and orchestration are often confused, and are used interchangeably.  

Orchestration is a more complex, planned and coordinated systematic approach that includes the following processes:

• Interrelated workflow tasks between services, middleware, and computer systems.
• Coordination between middleware, services, and complex computer systems.
• Management and supervision to ensure the regulation of computers, services, and middleware. 

Main benefits of Cloud Orchestration

Companies require agile infrastructure in order to streamline their processes and personalise their services. In spite of this, old data centres are still being used, hampering flexibility and response capacity. 

In these cases, IT cannot provide that streamlined approach, and what is really missing is further optimisation of operations within the data centre where storage and processing takes place, as well as a cloud system that delivers the flexibility needed, enabling companies to innovate and move forward. This would significantly increase efficiency.

By reducing the number of processes and staff required to carry out critical tasks, companies are able to make more effective use of resources. 

Then, why is cloud orchestration so important? Which are its main advantages?

• Greater flexibility and efficiency in terms of resource use. When companies migrate to the cloud, the aim is to take a major leap forward and become more agile. Cloud orchestration facilitates this process, ensuring that resources are quicky available to DevOps. Also, while workflows perform the less important tasks, IT professionals can focus on more critical processes, creating a more efficient resource environment. 
• Security and compliance become easier.. Security and compliance with security policies are important and are complex tasks that require a great deal of attention. However, for its correct functioning, companies must have a high level of resource management and implementation. Here, any human error can be very costly and needs to be avoided. 

For this reason, these tasks need to be simplified as much as possible by means of orchestration and automation. Workflows, planned safety and compliance activities ensure the organisation is correctly regulated and under control.  

Orchestration provides a high-tier data centre, allowing better use of infrastructure, accelerating application performance, and providing effective centralised monitoring. The goal is to achieve an automated, flexible, and self-service infrastructure capable of maximising efficiency and predicting potential problems in good time. 

Introduction to VM disk file sizes

When you launch a virtual machine, the hypervisor or public cloud region will deploy one or more VM disk files. To launch a VM, most hypervisors require the disk size, and this article describes how to get the size from the command line with some popular virtualization tools.

Enter the capacity of the VM template in the multi-cloud platform

When you upload an OVA to the self-service catalog of the Abiquo cloud platform, it will automatically enter the capacity in the VM template and display it for your users.

But when you upload a single disk file via the UI, then you must manually enter the capacity, which is a value in bytes.

Remember that the capacity will depend on the type of disk:

• For fixed disk formats, use the physical size of the disk image.
• For sparse and compressed formats, use the provisioned size.

If you are have an OVF file to manually upload a template, it must have a correct ovf:capacity attribute. For example, here is an extract of an OVF file.

<Info>List of the virtual disks used in the package</Info>
<Disk ovf:capacity="734003200" ovf:diskId="vmdisk1" ovf:fileRef="file1" ...

If you are uploading a single disk manually, you must enter the capacity but if you don’t know the correct size at that time, you can always enter a best-guess value. Then before you create a VM, edit the VM template and enter the correct value.

Screenshots: Creating a VM template catalog in the Abiquo multi-cloud platform

Enter the capacity of the VM template in the multi-cloud platform

When you upload an OVA to the self-service catalog of the Abiquo cloud platform, it will automatically enter the capacity in the VM template and display it for your users.

But when you upload a single disk file via the UI, then you must manually enter the capacity, which is a value in bytes.

Remember that the capacity will depend on the type of disk:

• For fixed disk formats, use the physical size of the disk image.
• For sparse and compressed formats, use the provisioned size.

If you are have an OVF file to manually upload a template, it must have a correct ovf:capacity attribute. For example, here is an extract of an OVF file.

<Info>List of the virtual disks used in the package</Info>
<Disk ovf:capacity="734003200" ovf:diskId="vmdisk1" ovf:fileRef="file1" ...

If you are uploading a single disk manually, you must enter the capacity but if you don’t know the correct size at that time, you can always enter a best-guess value. Then before you create a VM, edit the VM template and enter the correct value.

Screenshots: Creating a VM template catalog in the Abiquo multi-cloud platform

The administrator maintains a template catalog to give users self-service access to VMs

Abiquo and Thrive have joined forces to create the new ‘Hybrid Cloud Director’ that will support visibility and management of multi-cloud workloads. 

This new service will further enhance Thrive’s industry-leading cloud offerings to its customers and will take Thrive’s unique blend of managed service offerings to the next level. 

Thrive’s philosophy is focused on meeting the specific needs of customers, providing the highest levels of customer service and support and so, together with Abiquo, they have created this new platform that will allow users to manage both private and public cloud in an intuitive and easy way.

Thrive is ranked among the top 100 IT Managed Service Providers globally and we’re thrilled to have them as a customer. We are looking forward to helping Thrive to continue delivering innovative solutions to its clients in North America.

You can read the complete Press Release in the link below.

An introduction to OVA

To move virtual machines between platforms it is common to create an OVA. An OVA (open virtualization appliance) is a compressed package that contains a VM disk and its descriptor in OVF (open virtualization format). As of version 6.5, vSphere no longer provides an easy way for users to export OVA files.

When you connect with the vSphere 6.7 Web Client, a VM has an OVF export option but there is no OVA option.

If you would like to directly export a VM as an OVA file, you can use OVF tool on the command line. To export many VMs, you could use the commands in a script. Or if you are working with a large VM, you could export an OVF and then compress it to create the OVA.

Download OVF tool

When you go to the VMware website downloads menu and select OVF tool, the Windows version displays for you to download.

To use another version (for example, Mac or Linux), go to the main Downloads page and search for “ovf tool”.

Install OVF tool

The Windows and Mac versions are standard installer packages.

The Linux version is a bundle package, and you can easily install it from the command line by executing the bundle with a shell command. Replace ovftool.bundle with the name of the bundle file.

sh ovftool.bundle

Discover the VM on vCenter

To work with OVF tool, you will need your vCenter URL and credentials, and you will also need the path to your VM.

If you don’t know the VM path, you can discover it. For example, enter the vCenter URL and credentials.

ovftool vi://[email protected]:[email protected]

This is not a VM, so the tool will return an error message for the “wrong kind of object”, for example, a folder or a datacenter.

It will suggest possible completions, which are the objects under the path you have entered. Keep adding completions until you get to the “vm” folder and select a VM.

For example, a VM could have this path.

vi://[email protected]:[email protected]/DcNSX-qa/vm/windowstest

Display the VM OVF details

With OVF tool, the default vi command displays a friendly version of the OVF details.

ovftool vi://[email protected]:[email protected]/DcNSX-qa/vm/windowstest

In this example, the user entered the administrator and password interactively

user@user:~/Downloads $ ovftool vi://nsxqa-vc.example.com/DcNSX-qa/vm/windowstest
Enter login information for source vi://nsxqa-vc.example.com/
Username: [email protected]
Password: **********
OVF version:   1.0
VirtualApp:    false
Name:          windowstest

Download Size:  Unknown

Deployment Sizes:
  Flat disks:   20.00 MB
  Sparse disks: Unknown

Networks:
  Name:        default_private_network_57
  Description: The default_private_network_57 network

Virtual Machines:
  Name:               windowstest
  Operating System:   windows9server64guest
  Virtual Hardware:
    Families:         vmx-14
    Number of CPUs:   1
    Cores per socket: 1
    Memory:           16.00 MB

    Disks:
      Index:          0
      Instance ID:    11
      Capacity:       20.00 MB
      Disk Types:     SCSI-lsilogicsas

    NICs:
      Adapter Type:   E1000e
      Connection:     default_private_network_57

Download an OVA file directly

To download the OVA file, enter “vi://” with the VM path and with a local file with an “.ova” suffix at the end.

ovftool vi://[email protected]:[email protected]/DcNSX-qa/vm/windowstest ./windowstest.ova

You should now be able to upload the OVA file into a VM template in the cloud platform’s catalog so users can create VMs from the template and deploy them. 

Or export an OVF folder and convert it to an OVA file

An alternative method is to export the OVF package and convert it to an OVA file. This method is recommended by VMware and it may provide better performance for large VMs.

First export the OVF package to your local file system and ensure it is in a separate folder.

Then convert it to an OVA file using OVF tool.

For example:

cd windowstest-folder
ovftool windowstest.ovf windowstest.ova

Troubleshooting

On Linux, remember to escape any special characters in your password that may be interpreted by the shell.

After you upload the VM template, remember to select the option to generate conversions to other hypervisor formats as required.

References

For more details, see the VMware release notes for vSphere 6.5 (https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/rn/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-65-release-notes.html) in the section with the title: “vSphere Web Client does not support exporting virtual machines or vApps as OVA templates”.

Cloud management refers to the control that administrators exercise over the cloud, whether this concerns users, apps, data or services. The tools they use make it possible to supervise all types of activities within this environment, such as data, resource usage and process monitoring, as well as allowing data backup and disaster recovery in the event of any issues. In other words, it offers complete administrative control to meet the specific needs of companies.

Below we will explain what a cloud management platform is, to help you discover everything it has to offer. 

What should a good cloud management platform do?

• Optimise working processes: Cloud management is the best way to optimise working processes through a much more flexible structure. A good control and management platform will allow companies to carry out their business efficiently – no matter the sector – while saving money.
• Automate processes: When it comes to managing a company, spreadsheets have become outdated, with more appropriate cloud solutions being established in their place. The aim is to employ new technologies to send documents, create reports and offer customer service with automated processes that make the work easier.
• Integrate with existing IT infrastructures: A good cloud management platform is one that integrates with a company’s current IT infrastructure and adapts to any needs. What’s more, the platform should be based on automation, to avoid the need for manual tasks which take up a great deal of time.    
• Offer a comprehensive view of costs: This type of service is normally distinguished by its ability to offer a comprehensive view of costs and bills, facilitating situational analysis and the creation of precise reports. In the same way, the administrator must be able to access the management data, resources and tools from any location, thanks to online accessibility.  
• Provide maximum control: Equally, the user should be able to manage everything and maintain control at all times: with the platform guiding them to access their resources and configuration, both simply and efficiently. 

Abiquo cloud management platform is intended to cover all those aspects of cloud management and much more.

Furthermore, given that companies need to make use of all multi-cloud environments in order to succeed, it must function with the three types of cloud (public, private and hybrid) in a secure and hassle-free way. 

Why choose a cloud management solution?

Today, you can enjoy the benefits of incredibly innovative cloud management solutions. Some of these platforms are designed to meet all types of strategic objectives, providing a means of virtual management which is easy to use.

It’s very important that they can adapt to companies of all sizes and from all sectors, with the aim of improving the agility of their business, reducing costs and mitigating risks. These are highly comprehensive solutions which offer advanced features, although they must also be simple to implement and manage. 

With their help, you can say goodbye to the problems of uncontrolled and disorganised management. In fact, they offer a physical infrastructure which we should be able to control with ease. They are intended to give authorised users the ability to virtually manage their business within the assigned resources. 

The chosen platform must be intuitive and the tools should be deployable within seconds – significantly improving efficiency and agility. And if the system allows you to manage everything without changing to different environments, that’s even better. One of the main benefits should be the ability to control all cloud resources from a single platform. This means creating reports, managing workloads or creating new applications, all from the same administrative environment.

The best platforms to manage your resources in the cloud

The best cloud management platforms are based on a software solution for the administration and control of your entire public, private or hybrid infrastructure. Their help allows users to create all types of services for customers and enables companies to become successful in the cloud market.

The interface should be easy to use and, once in operation, you should ideally be able to add upgrade packages and new integration systems to have everything connected: billing, online shop, customer portal, configuration management database (CMDB), or any other business support system. 

Some leading service providers around the world use this type of platform to create and operate their cloud services. In fact, certain companies have even been awarded for the innovative and flexible solutions they have developed around these attractive services. 

With a good cloud management platform, the benefits are endless. In fact, current technology allows us to eliminate any barrier to implementing your cloud infrastructure. These are stand-alone products that provide plug-and-play technology to the end user, without the need to set up any manufacturer-provided software or configure any confusing settings. 

Today, what matters is the speed of execution, and cloud services should stand out for their flexibility, value and advanced options. Service differentiation is increasingly important, and this type of platform should allow users to integrate, develop, control and manage various solutions through a single, powerful interface. As a result, they not only simplify operations, but reduce support costs, offering optimal resources to suit any budget. 

Companies that adopt this management model can automate everything and control different processes through a single programming interface, ensuring everything is at hand: support, finances, monitoring, backup and CMDB. What’s more, it’s important to consider future processes and ensure that it will be possible to integrate any new innovations with ease, offering exemplary flexibility to make technological decisions that will not limit your business in the future.  

It should also offer your company the control it needs. In any worthwhile IT infrastructure, control is fundamental: not only when managing resources, but in order to establish who can access them and, likewise, to delegate tasks and restrict users. 

Abiquo is a leading developer of cloud management solutions. We offer you: 

• Cloud management software. 
• Customers can create cloud services and manage private, public or hybrid infrastructures. 
• A platform which is very intuitive and easy to use. 
• We guarantee greater visibility, efficiency, control and simplicity.  

Without a doubt, a powerful platform simplifies any management activity through the use of a customisable and intuitive interface. As such, it makes sense to opt for a Cloud Management Platform that offers exclusive flexibility to provide an efficient infrastructure that can be easily adapted to the needs of the company. 

We’re excited to announce the release of Abiquo’s new User Interface, Cadmium.

Abiquo’s customers can now upgrade to our new and improved user interface (UI), along with new features included in major latest release, Abiquo 5.0.

By upgrading to Abiquo 5.0 users will benefit from new improved features that simplify processes and help the user navigate and interact easily with their multi cloud resources. 

Major enhancements include improvements to information dashboards, by including new graphs and tables to simplify the data and show information in a more visual way; increased productivity, by incorporating new and redesigned elements making it easier for users to identify functionalities and processes; better consistency, thanks to the new and unified styles in the platform, utilizing a new set of design rules to accelerate adoption; and ease of navigation, streamlining menus, sub-menus, notifications and other modules of the platform to speed navigation of Abiquo’s rich features.

The Abiquo v5 Cadmium User Interface offers more intuitive navigation and faster access to key information, ensuring an even more rapid ROI on your Abiquo multicloud platform. 

It is not a secret that Multi Cloud and Hybrid Cloud are being massively adopted by most companies these days all over the world.

According to recent studies, multi-cloud has become the norm for most enterprises across Asia Pacific. More than 90% of the organizations have multiple cloud environments with different degrees of interoperability, and more than 50% are already using hybrid cloud strategies. However, nearly 44% lack of a formal hybrid-cloud strategy, according to 451 Research survey.

On the other hand, over 84% of CIOs in Asia Pacific believe multi-cloud will constitute up to 50% of their hosting environment in the next three years, up from an average of less than 30% today, according to a recent research made by Kemp Technologies on behalf of Forrester. Plus, the spending on cloud computing in Asia Pacific is forecast to grow at 19% per year until 2023, with market investments expected to reach US$256 billion.

Given all the research and the experience we already have with some existing customers and partners, Abiquo is strongly betting for the Asia Pacific region to offer its multi cloud and hybrid cloud services. 

In order to increase our brand awareness and visibility we decided to participate in ConnecTechAsia, one of the largest technology events held last June in Singapore. 

The Singapore journey has commenced but it will take longer than usual in Europe or the US.  Large enterprises are established in Singapore, that also reach into large global markets, which is an advantage for us having presence worldwide. Besides, MSPs are a critical player within Singapore, and there are potentially several large hybrid cloud players.

ConnecTechAsia has provided significant experience on what can be expected, and how best to engage. An example of one of the challenges encountered is the global understanding of the business value of a cloud orchestration platform. Meetings tended to focus less on the technology and functionality, and more on how it can benefit their business. The lesson learnt here is to continue the discussions and engagements at the business benefits level. 

As Singapore considers itself as the business gateway to the Asia Pacific region, and even though we are aware that building relationships in the region often takes longer than expected and may exceed business targets, we are happy to continue working on the build-up of these relationships and see rewarding business returns in the short term.

Innovation refers to creating more effective processes, products, and ideas and, thus, it is vital because it gives companies the chance to gain entrance in new markets faster and lead to bigger opportunities.

Implementing new ideas, improving services or creating dynamic products are enablers to make à business grow and in the marketplace.

Abiquo, with its continuous aim of improving products in line with market trends and customer focus, has been awarded the Innovative SME Stamp, a recognition awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness to companies that are committed to R+D+I.