Create and manage a VM

Power on

Leave the Power on checkbox selected if you want the VM to power on immediately after you create it.

Clear the Power on checkbox if you intend to edit the VM or add it to a vApp before you power it on.

Template

Select a template. Typically, there is one template per OS.

Note: Rackspace Technology creates and manages templates.

Storage policy

Select one of the following storage policies:

Standard: Based on shared SAN.

Capacity: Based on all-flash vSAN.

Compute sizing policy

Select from the list of compute sizes.

The compute size defines the amount of vRAM and several assigned vCPUs. You cannot customize the sizing policy.

NICs

• *Primary NIC: If you have multiple NICs, you must designate one of the NICs as the Primary NIC. Because the system pushes DNS and gateway settings to only the Primary NIC, you must select a connection that needs these settings the most for external communication.
  
  Connected: Select this option unless you want to keep the interface disconnected for now. You can always change this setting later.
  
  Network adapter type: We recommend that you selectVMXNET3for most modern operating systems.
  
  Network: Select the network to which you want to connect this network adapter.
  
  IP mode: Select betweenDHCP,IP Pool, orIP Manual. In most cases, we recommend that you selectIP Pool**.
  
  > **Note**: You are responsible for creating the IP pool. Rackspace Technology does not impose a limit on IP pools.

Power

• *Power on: When you power on a VM, pay-as-you-go billing and alerting begins.
  
  Power off: This option abruptly shuts down the VM, which we do not recommend. Whenever possible, use theShut down guest OSoption to shut down the VM.
  
  Power on, force recustomization: If you have not synchronized the settings on a guest VM with vCloud Director or your attempt to perform guest customization fails, you can power on and force the recustomization of the VM.
  
  Shut down guest OS: Gracefully shuts down a VM when you do not need it. This option suspends pay-as-you-go billing and alerting for the VM. You can power on the VM later.
  
  Suspend: This option puts the VM in a suspended state where it does not respond, but you can resume it from the same point.
  
  Note: When you suspend a VM, you do not incur RAM charges, but you still incur storage charges.
  
  Reset: This option forcefully resets the VM. Reset the VM as a last resort if the guest OS is not responding.
  
  Discard suspended state**: This option is only available for suspended VMs. When you discard a suspended state:
  
  The operation discards the contents of vRAM, so you can no longer resume the VM.
  
  The VM transitions into a powered-off state.
  
  
  Suspending a VM and then discarding its suspended state is equivalent to powering off the VM.

Renew Lease

Your Rackspace VM has a permanent lease. You do not need to use this option.

Snapshot

A snapshot stores the state and data of a VM at the time of the snapshot. The system limits you to one snapshot for each VM.

A snapshot is useful if you make a potentially risky change to your applications, operating system, or data and require a convenient way to roll back those changes. For example, create a snapshot before you upgrade your applications.

Create snapshot: Creates a new point-in-time VM snapshot. Includes OS and application configuration and all other data stored on the VM. A new snapshot replaces any existing snapshot.

Snapshot the memory of the virtual machine: Use this option to perform actions after which you might need to revert the VM to its previous state. If you later revert to a snapshot without memory, the reverted VM is in a powered-off state.

Quiesce the guest file system (requires installed VMware Tools): Quiescing a file system is a process of bringing the on-disk data of a physical or virtual computer into a state suitable for backups. This process might include such operations as flushing dirty buffers from the operating system in-memory cache to disk or other higher-level application-specific tasks. Quiescing indicates pausing or altering the state of running processes on a computer, particularly those that might modify information stored on the disk.

Revert to snapshot: Reverts the VM to a point in time when you took the snapshot. This option is useful when you want to roll back your application upgrade.

> Caution: You also lose any intentional changes, including data that has been written to disks since you created the snapshot.

Remove snapshot: Select this option after verifying that your changes succeeded and you do not need to roll back. The operation commits any changes made to the VM since snapshot creation to VM disks.

VM console

The VM console displays the contents of your VM and lets you manage your guest OS.

Launch web console: Open the console in a browser.

Launch remote console: Open the console in a dedicated desktop application.

Download VM remote console: Download the application required for the remote console function.

Install VMware tools

Install VMware tools to improve the management and performance of the VM.

VMWare tools replace the operating system with VMware drivers optimized for use with VMs. Refer to VMware documentation for more information about how to install VMware tools.

Move

Move the VM to another vApp. This removes the VM from the original vApp.

Copy

Copy the VM to another vApp. This copies the VM to a vApp, and the copied VM remains in the original vApp.

Use the copy feature when you want another instance of the same VM in a different vApp.

Change owner

You can change the owner of the vApp, such as when a vApp owner leaves the company or changes roles within the company.

Share

You can share your VM with other groups or users within your organization.

If you are managing your VMs as a team, we recommend sharing a VM.

Create template

If you want to re-use the current state of the VM as a golden image, you can add it to a catalog as a template. You can then create VMs based on the VM template.

Convert to vApp

Create a new vApp and add this VM to it.

Edit badges

Add a badge to your VM. This operation stores badges as object metadata. Use badges to monitor specific conditions related to your VM, such as operational status and workload.

Delete

Delete the VM.

Important: You cannot reverse a delete VM action.

Size

If the OS indicates that the VM is running low on free space, you might need to increase the size of a hard disk.

Important: This change has pay-as-you-go billing implications.

Policy

You can change the storage policy for the vDisk. This might have performance and pay-as-you-go billing implications.

Bus number

Leave the default setting.

Unit number

Leave the default setting.

Placement policy

This feature is currently disabled.

Sizing policy

Select from a pre-defined list of VM sizes.

Number of virtual CPUs

The number of virtual CPUs is a function of the sizing policy you selected.

Calculate the virtual CPU value by multiplying the number of sockets by the number of cores per socket.

Cores per socket

The number of cores per socket is a function of the sizing policy you selected.

Having more cores means your VM can independently run more applications or threads.

Number of sockets

The number of sockets is a function of the sizing policy you selected.

You cannot directly change this setting.

Virtual CPU hot add

The CPU hot-add feature enables you to add CPU resources to a running VM.

Before you enable CPU hot add, ensure that:

The guest OS supports hot add.

You install the latest release of VMware tools.

* You power off the VM.

Expose hardware-assisted CPU virtualization to guest OS

This setting allows exposure of the full CPU virtualization to the guest operating system so that applications that require hardware virtualization can run on VMs without binary translation or paravirtualization.

Memory

The amount of memory is a function of the sizing policy you selected.

You cannot directly change this setting.

Memory hot add

The memory hot-add feature enables you to add memory resources to a running VM.

Before you enable memory hot add, ensure that:

The guest OS supports hot add.

You install the latest release of VMware tools.

* You power off the VM.

Primary NIC checkbox

If you have multiple NICs, you must designate one of the NICs as the Primary NIC.

Because the system pushes DNS and gateway settings to only the Primary NIC, you must select a connection that needs these settings the most for external communication.

Connected checkbox

This setting is equivalent to connecting or disconnecting a physical cable.

Your VM cannot communicate over a disconnected interface.

Adapter type

We recommend that you select VMXNET3 for most modern operating systems.

Network

Select the network to which you want to connect this network adapter.

IP mode

Select DHCP, IP Pool, or IP Manual.

In most cases, we recommend that you select IP Pool.