Storage Feature Tables

This page summarizes storage features available in Abiquo and using different storage types.

The information on this page applies to private cloud only

Hypervisor Datastores

Hypervisor	Datastore	Notes
ESXi	VMFS NFS with RDM	RDM property Abiquo Configuration Properties#esxi
Hyper-V	local disk SMB mounted disk CSV	Do not use C:\
KVM	local disk	Do not use /
Oracle	NFS required
XenServer	LVM, EXT3, NFS, iSCSI, HBA

Abiquo detects datastore disk changes

Abiquo periodically checks hypervisors for changes in virtual machines, including CPU, RAM and datastore disks. You can set an abiquo.property to control the frequency of these checks (abiquo.vsm.vmsyncfrequency.<PLUGIN> see Abiquo Configuration Properties#vsm). If a virtual machine datastore disk is resized, Abiquo updates the size registered in Abiquo. If Abiquo detects a change in the datastore used for the virtual machine primary disk, it updates the value in Abiquo and publishes the following tracer:

Datastore of virtual machine '{VIRTUAL_MACHINE_NAME}' has been changed from '{OLD_VALUE}' to '{NEW_VALUE}'.

Abiquo support for storage moves and motion is described in the tables for each hypervisor.

iSCSI Storage Volumes

In Abiquo all iSCSI storage is persistent, i.e. changes persist after the virtual machine is undeployed. NFS storage is also persistent.

Datastore Hard Disks

Datastore Hard Disks are not persistent. When the user undeploys a virtual machine with disks on the hypervisor datastore, these disks will be destroyed.

Storage Features

Storage type / Storage features	iSCSI integrated	iSCSI generic	iSCSI API	NFS	Hypervisor datastore storage
Storage type	volumes	volumes	volumes	volumes	hard disks
Supported storage	NetApp LVM Nexenta	All iSCSI		All NFS	See Hypervisor Features
Persistent				Not available on Hyper-V
Persistent virtual machines
System disk resize

Notes:

ESX only supports resize of thin provisioned disks on SCSI controllers

Hypervisor Storage Features

ESXi Storage Features

Feature	Description
Datastores	VMFS NFS with RDM (To use RDM property, see Abiquo Configuration Properties#esxi)
Disk Controllers	Abiquo recommends that you configure disks to use SCSI controllers In the Abiquo UI and API, you can configure controller type and controller for VM templates and VMs By default the primary system disk will be mounted on an IDE controller By default the auxiliary hard disks on the ESXi datastore are mounted on an IDE controller Abiquo can also detect the SCSI controller from the OVF file or in an OVA On VMware hypervisors, Abiquo supports the use of ONE controller chosen from several different SCSI controllers From Abiquo 3.6.5, Abiquo supports more than one type of SCSI controller, with one controller of each type
SCSI Controllers	Default value: VirtualLsiLogicController configure with one of the valid controllers in abiquo.properties (from Abiquo 3.6.2, see Abiquo Configuration Properties#esxi) OR if controller text contains: "paravirtual": ParaVirtualSCSIController "bus": VirtualBusLogicController "sas": VirtualLsiLogicSASController If no controller is supplied at deploy time, and no default controller is set in properties, the platform default controller of lsilogic will be used A virtual machine can only have one SCSI controller and once created, the controller cannot be changed. From Abiquo 3.6.5, Abiquo allows you to set more than one type of SCSI controller, with one controller of each type From Abiquo 3.6.5, Abiquo allows you to change the controller before or after you deploy the VM
System disks	For all virtual machines deployed on ESX/ESXi hypervisors: if disks are deployed from VMDK Sparse templates, they will be in Sparse format if disks are deployed from VMDK templates or conversions from formats other than VMDK Sparse, they will be in flat/fixed formats with think provisioning enabled
Persistent Virtual Machines	By default persistent virtual machine disks are mounted on IDE controllers Abiquo recommends that you configure disks to use SCSI controllers In the Abiquo UI and API, you can configure controller type and controller for VM templates and VMs. See Modify a VM Template Abiquo can also detect the SCSI controller from the OVF file. See Extended OVF Support and Template Definition On VMware hypervisors, Abiquo supports several different SCSI controllers
Disk Resize	System disk resize Hard disk resize Disks must be: thin provisioned iSCSI disks mounted on a SCSI controller
Storage Live Migration	Abiquo detects storage vMotion on all datastores

Hyper-V Storage Features

Feature	Description
Datastores	Local disk SMB share Clustered shared volumes (CSV)
Disk Controllers	The primary system disk must be mounted on IDE controller to ensure compatibility Secondary disks or volumes can be mounted on IDE or SCSI controllers Each of the 2 available IDE controller support 2 disks, making a maximum IDE disks of 4
System Disks	SCSI IDE
Non-persistent Storage	Auxiliary hard disks on the Hyper-V datastore are always created in VHDX format
Persistent Storage	iSCSI integrated storage Generic iSCSI storage NFS persistent storage is not available on Hyper-V
Persistent Virtual Machines	VHDX VHD
Live Migration	Live migration is supported if the VM storage is moved to a different datastore Abiquo will detect movements between physical machines in a Failover cluster

KVM Storage Features

Feature	Description
Storage	iSCSI NFS Hard disks on hypervisor datastore
Disk controllers	SCSI IDE VIRTIO
System disks	All virtual machine system disks
Disk Resize	System disks Hard disks on hypervisor datastore
Persistent Virtual Machines	By default persistent virtual machine disks are mounted on SCSI controllers

Oracle VM Storage Features

Feature

Description

Storage

iSCSI volumes
NFS volumes
Hard disks

iSCSI Devices

Before you use a storage device with Abiquo, verify that it works well with Oracle VM in the following:

Initial storage device discovery
LUN discovery
Detection of new LUNs created

Note that you may need to manually review LUNs to delete LUNs from Oracle VM after they are removed from the storage device

iSCSI LUNs

1000 LUN storage array limitation