Appliance Library view

Cloud Admin Enterprise Admin User
1.6 new features
Since 1.6 this view is contextualized by the selected Datacenter.
Release Notes 1.6.0#DatacenterRepository

Appliance Library screen contains all the functionality required to manage virtual appliances templates sources, download, install or make available virtual images to be used on the cloud infrastructure.

Datacenter ready
To use this page you need the Appliance Manager remote service properly configured for your Datacenter. Creating a Datacenter.

First of all, let's discuss some basic concepts used when managing appliance library.

The Concepts of Apps Library

The view represents the state of the available virtual appliances temples for the selected Datacenter.
Each datacenter works with the Repository configured on its Appliance Manager remote service.

A user can see the logical enterprise separation inside the Repository, referred as the Enterprise Repository.

Appliance Library
An enterprise repository contains all OVF Packages available for the selected Datacenter, organized by categories and defined for public or private access.
Remote Repository

Organize lists of virtual appliance templates sources.

A Remote Repository is an external virtual image provider holding public virtual images definitions and disk files according to the OVF standard. Available form other physical location. The idea is that ISV and appliances providers can offer their own remote repositories in order to allow users to download their virtual appliance. This will be stored and configured to be used directly in our infrastructure.

Create your own sources
How to create a remote repository
Sources avail ables on all Datacenters
Remote Spaces are managed by each Enterprise, all the Datacenter can use any of them.
OVF Package

Virtual Appliances Templates are presented with a summary of its OVF descriptor file .

OVF Package is a virtual image description including:

  • product : description of the software installed.
  • format : Image compatibility table
  • diskSize : Size of the attached virtual disk file.
  • category : We may organize all the available packages by creating categories.
  • icon : the image to be displayed.
API feature
This feature is available in the API. See OVF Package Resource.
Virtual Image

Once an OVF Package is available on a Datacenter Repository it is logical represented with a Virtual Image.

Virtual Images also includes:

Apps Library main screen

Let's see now how we can manage our virtual images available through the Appliance Library screens.

As we saw, an enterprise repository is defined for each datacenter, so first step would be selecting which Datacenter we want to manage. At the right side of the screen we can see all the packages available to build virtual images for the selected datacenters, classified for their type:

From here we can make some simple operations on our available virtual images download, modification and delete buttons:

Modifying an existing virtual Image
Field Value
Name a short name in order to identify the virtual image.
Description a complete description of the installed services and applications on the virtual image.
Type Defines the disk type of the Image. This is an important concept because depending the image type, the conversion process it will generate the different conversions for each hypervisor. This is a non-editable field.
Filename We can download the image to our local filesystem from here. This is a non-editable field
Category A logical aggregation of virtual images facilitating the organization of these images. There is a default category which cannot be deleted.
CPU Number of CPUs assigned to this image.
RAM RAM memory size assigned for this image in Mb or Gb
Hard Disk Hard disk size assigned for this image in Mb or Gb
Icon Each virtual image is assigned an icon image for easy identification, a default icon is assigned if the application is not explicitly given one. If user wants, he can upload a new file. We may manage our available icons from here.
Shared Image This check allows to all enterprise to show this image. This images are called shared images. Only sysadmins can check this button.
Conversions list Show the different conversions that has this image for be used in different hypervisors.

Now, if we want to get more images available we must download them to our system: there are two ways to achieve this

  • Downloading from a Remote Repository.
  • Uploading from local.

These options are available by clicking the button We can also remove any image we don't want anymore.

As you can see, We can manage our existing categories from the option displayed here.

Downloading from a Remote Repository

If we select this option we'll get this screen:

We can select the Datacenter in the first column on the left: categories and packages available will be updated.
After that, we can select a category or all available in the second row
The third row will show the packages available to be downloaded to our Datacenter to deploy virtual images. An icon, title and brief description is provided for each.

The user interface provides some other operations on this screen.

  • Add/Remove Remote Repositories: at the bottom of the first column we can see two buttons and to manage the remote spaces available. We can click on the and provide an URL to a Remote Repository to download our OVF images from.
    Default repository space
    When an enterprise repository is created, a default remote repository is provided wiht this URL http://abiquo-repository.abiquo.com/s3direct/ovfindex.xml
  • Download: we can start downloading our images by checking the box next to the desired package and clicking the button at the bottom of the screen. A status bar will appear next to the selected packages showing its download state.
  • Refresh: we can press this button at the bottom of the screen to refresh the screen with current packages available, downloaded, etc.
  • Order: the upper left of the screen contains a combobox allowing us to order the packages shown by download status, type, etc.

Uploading from our local filesystem

Using this option we can upload a custom virtual image configuring the resources, disk file, etc. This is the form we'll have to fill in order to create a new valid virtual image.
Field Value
Name a short name in order to identify the virtual image.
Description a complete description of the installed services and applications on the virtual image.
Type Defines the disk type of the Image. This is an important concept because depending the image type, the conversion process it will generate the different conversions for each hypervisor
Category A logical aggregation of virtual images facilitating the organization of these images. There is a default category which cannot be deleted. By default, category 'Others' is selected.
CPU Number of CPUs assigned to this image.
RAM RAM memory size assigned for this image in Mb or Gb
Hard Disk Hard disk size assigned for this image in Mb or Gb
Icon Each virtual image is assigned an icon image for easy identification, a default icon is assigned if the application is not explicitly given one. If user wants, he can upload a new file or manage existing icons

By pressing 'Next' we will be able to upload the requested file:

Direct
As downloading to client functionality requires access to the configured Appliance Manager address for the current Datacenter.
2 GB limitation
The upload process is handled by the browser and there are some limitations duet the fact that browsers actually fetch all the file in memory before posting to the server.
So files with more than 2 GB should not be provided.

Managing Icons

On the virtual image edit pop-up and using the [userGuideAbiCloud:+] button allows the introduction of new icons to the system:

  • The name of the icon
  • URL  where the icon is stored.  You can add icons in a folder called "icons" inside the web server or any image stored in internet. We suggest icons of 96x96 pixels. The validate button assures that the icon to be updated is ok.
  • With the ok/cancel buttons the user can confirm the information entered or return to the previous page.

Managing Categories

In this section, we are allowed to manage categories.

Using the basic buttons, users can create or delete a category

In this popup user can:

  • Specify the category name
  • With the ok/cancel buttons, confirm the information supplied or return to the previous page.

Showing the max and remaining size

New feature
This feature is available since 1.6.5 release.

Now when users clicks on a datacenter in Appliance Library section, user can see the Total and the remaining size

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