Automated provisioning of VMs (Virtual Machines) has become the necessity of the hour for web hosts who provide virtualization solutions, to improve the speed and efficiency of order processing.

oVirt is a popular virtualization platform that comes with a management interface of its own. The oVirt engine admin web interface in it provides system administrators with a GUI to easily create and edit VPS.

But performing tasks ranging from VPS creation to resource management with a GUI is a tedious and time-consuming process for the web hosting provider. That’s where automated provisioning helps.

Download oVirt Management Module for WHMCS

Automated provisioning of oVirt VMs via WHMCS module

To facilitate web hosting users with a feature to easily manage their oVirt VMs via WHMCS portal, Bobcares engineers have recently launched the WHMCS oVirt module. From a single management interface, customers could manage their billing and VMs.

The oVirt API is the Application programming interface for the oVirt engine. The WHMCS oVirt module connects to the oVirt API and performs actions on it using its functions.

Using this oVirt module, customers could easily create, start, stop and even manage the network for their VMs. One of the key features in the module is the automated provisioning of a VM, when an order is placed.

With this automated provisioning feature, when a customer places an order for a new in WHMCS, the VM would get automatically created and started. The VM configuration would be chosen based on the customer’s plan.

For customers who require manual provisioning instead of automation and other custom settings, we also provide that option to provision VM from the WHMCS service page of the customer.

[ Looking for custom plugins to manage your portals? Contact us to get tailor-made plugins to serve your business purposes. ]

oVirt API functions for automated provisioning

When a customer places an order for a VM in the WHMCS, it calls the REST API function to create the VPS. The REST API would connect to the oVirt engine with the authentication credentials provided.

oVirt REST API comes in the pattern – http(s)://server:port/api/vms/xxx-xxx/disks/yyy-yyy

In this API call, the required parameters for VM creation, such as name, template, cluster, etc. are provided to facilitate the VM creation. The sample code would look like:

  curl -v -u "user@domain:password" 
  -H "Content-type: application/xml" 
  -d  ` '`<vm> `  `<name>`my_new_vm`</name> `  `<cluster><name>`cluster_name`</name></cluster> `  `<template><name>`template_name`</name></template>
   `</vm>`' 'http(s)://server:port/api/vms'

After creating the VM, the automated provisioning feature will set hostname, root password and network configuration using ‘cloud init’ feature of ovirt via the REST API.

[ Avoid the overhead involved in managing multiple interfaces! Get our WHMCS oVirt management plugin here. ]

WHMCS oVirt module interface for automated provisioning

When a user clicks on the option to create a new VPS, the plans allotted to him get listed in the portal. User can then choose the plan for which the new instance has to be created.

Our custom script would then check the billing details and assigned plans for the customer and validate the operation. The VPS will then be created based on that plan’s template.

Apart from the ease of management and prevention of obsolete entries, our new oVirt-WHMCS integrated system thus reduces the manual efforts involved in order processing of new VMs.

Automated provisioning using pre-configured VM templates via their WHMCS portals, helps users to easily get their VMs live as soon as their order is processed, which enables them to garner more business in no time.

In addition to the already available feature list in the module, we also provide web hosts with the custom features and tweaks that they ask for. Bobcares’ expertise in various billing portals and management software, help us integrate these systems in very less time.

If you’d like to get a custom quote for integrating your VM management portal or other software systems into your billing system to make things easier for you and your customers, contact us now.