Manage Virtual Storage

Enterprise Edition Functionality This feature is available in Abiquo Enterprise Edition

Cloud Admin	Enterprise Admin	User

The Virtual Storage Concept

Storage virtualization refers to the process of abstracting local storage from physical storage. In the Abiquo platform this means that users can see in their system an attached device that is no physically connected to the machine, but logically.

Nowadays, there are several file systems such as ZFS or BTRFS which offer the users the possibility to create volumes in external storage from pools.

Abiquo uses Virtual Storage to serve on-demand storage capacities using external Storage Pools and to offer a persistence layer for sensible data. Users can use these resources to attach them in any of their deployed Virtual Machines

Prerequisites Before using External Storage features in a Virtual Datacenter, a Storage Pool must be configured as explained in the Manage external storage page of the Infrastructure view section.

Managing Volumes

All external volume management can be done in the Storage tab of a Virtual Datacenter.

The allowed operations for external volume management are:

Button	Action
	Create a new External Volume
	Remove an existing External Volume
	Edit the selected External Volume

Creating a Volume

To create a new volume, select the Virtual Datacenter, click the button and fill the form with the desired volume data:

Modifying an existing volume

All volume fields (name, description an size) can be modified by clicking the button.

Volume edition Filesystem will be destroyed when reducing volume size. If volume size is augmented, you need extra steps in order to VM filesystem use it: Extend vm OS filesystem

Deleting volumes

To delete a volume, select it and click the button.

Volume deletion Only volumes that are not assigned to a Virtual machine can be deleted. Stateful volumes cannot be deleted if they are used in a Virtual Appliance.

Stateful volumes

Stateful volumes are a special kind of external volumes and they can be neither created nor edited from the Storage tab. They are created from a Virtual Appliance as explained in the the Stateful Process page.