Instances

Instances are a great starting point for taking advantage of self-service features and spinning up both VMs and containers. The top of the main Instances page shows overall statistics for the listed Instances, including count, status, and resource utilization. You can search for Instances by name, or filter by group, type, or category.

The Instance list contains important information about each Instance, including the Instance name, environment tag, type, IP address and port info, Instance version, the number of virtual machines or containers, the Group, and the associated Cloud.

Creating Instances

The Instance catalog is where you will create new workloads targeting the HPE VME clusters and/or VMware vCenter Clouds available to the HPE VM Essentials environment. The list contains only Instance Types relevant to the provisioning engines which enabled and integrated in the current appliance.

To get started, simply click the + Add button in the upper right of the Provisioning > Instances page. A modal will display allowing the catalog to be searched. Once an item is selected, it is just a matter of following the steps through the wizard.

Tip

The Instance catalog can be customized via role-based access control (RBAC) to restrict provision types only to certain Roles. It is completely customizable.

The next step will ask for a Group and Cloud to be selected. The Group is an abstract representation that can contain multiple HPE VME clusters or VMware vCenter integrations. Clouds can be in multiple Groups and Groups are also useful for using RBAC to restrict provisioning access and set retainment policies. The wizard continues by allowing us to choose a name for the Instance as well as an environment.

Note

Currently the Environment option is most useful for presenting the user with informative metadata around the Instance when coming back to it later.

Moving on, it is now time to configure the Instance. Depending on the Instance Configuration that is chosen, fields will change. This can include cloud-specific fields (i.e. target hosts for HPE VME clusters or datastores for VMware Clouds). There will also be options like setting an initial user account. Some of these fields are optional and will be represented as such in the wizard.

One last step before the Instance can be provisioned is the Automation step. It is here that you can select Tasks which will run during the provision process and these Tasks must complete successfully in order for the Instance status to be reported as successful. Tasks are either Bash or Powershell scripts which can be configured in the Library > Automation section.

Now that the steps are completed for provisioning the selected Instance type, simply review your selections and complete. The Instance will automatically show up in the Instances list and its provisioning state will be represented. Depending on what was provisioned this step can range from seconds to minutes.

Converting Discovered Resources to Managed Instances

When creating new cloud integrations (or updating existing ones), users may opt for HPE VM Essentials to onboard any existing resources that currently reside in the Cloud. For example, these may be virtual machines that exist on vCenter hosts prior to integration with HPE VM Essentials. With the Add/Edit Cloud modal open, mark INVENTORY EXISTING INSTANCES for HPE VM Essentials to automatically onboard these resources. Not only will HPE VM Essentials inventory these hosts at the time the cloud is integrated (or updated), it will also continue to poll the target cloud every five minutes (by default) for newly added or removed servers. Users can see these discovered servers by looking in Infrastructure > Compute. Depending on the type of resource, it may appear on the Virtual Machines tab, the Containers tab, or another tab. Additionally, we can see a list of discovered servers on Cloud detail pages (Infrastructure > Clouds > Selected Cloud). Just click on the tabs for VMs, Containers or Hosts tab. Discovered resources will be indicated as such whereas containers which are associated with a managed Instance will be marked as a “Managed”.

Additionally, HPE VM Essentials allows users to convert discovered resources into managed Instances. Begin from the server detail page (Infrastructure > Compute > Virtual Machines > selected machine) and from the ACTIONS menu select “Convert to Managed”. At this point, we must make a number of selections:

  • Select a Group (this dropdown contains a filtered list of Groups in which the associated Cloud resides)

  • Username and password for a seeded account

  • Opt to install HPE VM Essentials Agent or not

  • Select the Instance Type which should be associated with the new Instance containing this VM

  • Identify the operating system

  • Select a Plan (this dropdown contains a filtered list of plans which correlate to the size of the VM)

Finally, click EXECUTE. Once this process is completed, the server will be indicated as “Managed” in the servers list. Additionally, a new Instance will appear on the Instances List page (Provisioning > Instances). We can now work with it in the same way we can work with any other Instance, such as by expanding the Instance horizontally with added nodes.

Managing Instances

Instance actions allow you to perform numerous management tasks on instances. The actions available depend on the instance type, hypervisor, roles permissions, and instance state. Actions can be accessed from the Instances list page or from an Instance detail page.

Edit

Edit the Name, Description, Environment, Group, Tags, and Owner for the Instance.

Delete

Deletes the Instance.

Important

Deleting an Instance will delete the actual underlying VMs or Containers and cannot be undone.

Tip

You can change the owner of an instance easily by selecting the edit button and entering a new owner in the corresponding field.

Actions

Available options in the Actions dropdown can include:

Suspend

Puts the VM in a suspended state without shutting down the OS.

Stop/Start/Restart Server

Stops, Starts or Restarts the Virtual Machine.

Import as Image

Clones and exports VM in its current state to target Storage provider and adds a Virtual Image record with metadata matching the source Instance configuration.

Clone to Image

Clones and converts VM in its current state to image in the source Cloud and adds a Virtual Image record with metadata matching the source Instance configuration.

Lock/Unlock Instance

A locked Instance cannot be deleted until it is unlocked.

Reconfigure

The Reconfigure action allows service plan, disk, CPU, memory, networks and storage controller changes. Available options depend on the type and Plan configuration. Some resize actions require an Instance restart.

Clone

Creates a new Instance from the Instance at its current state.

Backup

Immediately executes a backup of the Instance. This is only available for Instances with backups enabled.

Run Task

Select a currently-configured Task to run against the Instance. Tasks can be created and edited in Library > Automation.

Add Node

Adds an additional node to the configuration. Additional options and configurations are required in the add node wizard depending on Instance configuration and type.

Eject Disk

Ejects attached disks (ISOs).

Clone to Template (VMware)

Creates a new VMware Template from the Instance with corresponding HPE VM Essentials Virtual Image record.

Tip

Scrolling down in the Actions dropdown may be necessary to see all options.

Performing Instance Actions

  1. Select the Provisioning link in the navigation bar.

  2. From the Instances list, select the desired Instance.

  3. Click the Actions dropdown button and select an Action.

Notes

Every Instance has a Wiki section for adding useful information about the Instance. Wiki can be added by selecting the Wiki tab on the bottom of the Instance Detail page. Instances with associated VMware VMs will bi-directionally sync HPE VM Essentials Wiki content and VMware VM Notes. See the Wiki Section for more details.

Tip

Markdown Syntax is supported in Wikis.