AbiCloud is a software that leverages your existing server, storage and network hardware into a powerful Cloud Computing Platform. Moreover, it can integrate with your Internal IT Systems thanks to the REST APIs and openness. You can see in the next picture an overview of the componentes of an abiCloud deployment.

AbiCloud Platform is developed with loosy coupled modules to improve the scalability of the system. This diagram describes the logical componentes of the infrastructure.

Let's introduce them:

Server

Contains the global business logic of the cloud platform and interacts with the database. It has been developed as a lightweight Java Enterprise Edition application, and designed as a Stateless Web Application. Because of its Stateless nature, it can scale horizontally adding more Server components and load-balancing them following a even simple round-robin policy.

All the persistent information needed to execute this component is stored in a relational database. At this moment the Database is MySQL, but can me migrated easily to other databases like Oracle, DB2, etc...

This component connects to all the existing managers: Virtual Factory, Virtual Monitor System, Appliance Manager and Storage Management System. All these components expose a REST API with a particular semantic.

Virtual Factory

It's the Virtual Server Factory of the platform. It exposes a REST API that can manage heterogenous virtualization technologies with an homogenous API. It also wraps the Virtual Server Plugins which are the specific management libraries for every virtualization technology . This is the list of available plugins implemented:

• VirtualBox: This hypervisor from Sun Microsystems is perfect to test drive the platform with server without virtualization extensions, for example.
• XEN, KVM (Libvirt plug-in): XEN and Kernel VM (KVM) are two opensource technologies running on top (or inside) the Linux Kernel. Thanks to the project Libvirt, both can be managed seamlessly from abiCloud.
• VMware ESXi 3.5 y 4: The number one enterprise class hypervisor. Can be managed from abiCloud, and there is no need of abiCloud agents to manage it.
• Others (xVM, Hyper-V, etc.): Almost any server virtualization technology can be managed from abiCloud. Interested in a new technology? Join the community and start building it yourself!

Premium Feature VMware ESXi 3.5 y 4 are features of the Enterprise version.

Virtual Monitor System

It's the component developed to monitor all the Virtual Infrastructure to know the events and states of the Cloud Platform. This component receives all the events and classify and persist them in such a way that can be explored from the User Interface and Accounting System.

Current versions support MySQL for the persistence of the events received, but we are working hard to deliver a No-SQL solution.

Appliance Manager

This component allows the management, distribution and scale of the Virtual Images repositories, allowing the import of appliances that they are outside the cloud platform.

Storage Management System

It allows the management of multiple Storage Systems, acting as a Virtual Storage Factory. It exposes a REST API that can manage heterogeneous storage technologies with an homogeneous API. It also wraps the Virtual Storage Plugins which are the specific management libraries for every storage technology . This is the list of available storage plugins implemented:

• ZFS Opensolaris: Manage any ZFS Opensolaris backed storage solution. It has been succesfully tested with OpenStorage from Sun Microsystems and NexentaStor from Nexenta.
• LVM & iSCSI Linux: Manage any storage based in Logical Volume Manager (LVM) Linux and iSCSI. For testing platforms.
• Others (Dell Equallogic, IBM Volume Manager): If it has an API, almost any storage technology can be managed from abiCloud. Contact us to know more about plugins in development and custom made solutions.

Premium Feature Storage Management System is a feature of the Enterprise version.

Virtual Storage Plugins

A Virtual Storage Plugin is a component that wraps the specific features of a storage technology to manage it from abiCloud. It must be installed in the appliance OS, or can be installed remotely if the storage technology has a public API.

Premium Feature Virtual Storage Plugins is a feature of the Enterprise version.

Console

The platform can be managed from a RIA Web application developed in FLEX. FLEX is a technology built on top of Adobe Flash, making the user experience in the web incomparable. Cloud administrators, System administrators and Cloud users have specific views of the Platform.

Management API

This component Abiquo has decide to define with the open Source Community in order to create an acceptable facade for the external connection or federation of third party clouds.