Instances and Clusters

In the Instances tab, you can view information on instances that you created in your system:

Resource	Value
Type	the type indicates if we are seeing a single instance or a cluster of instances
Name	the name of the instance/cluster
Image	the image this instance / cluster is built upon
Cores	the number of cores used by the instance
Memory	the amount of memory (MB) used by the instance
Storage	the amount of storage space (GB) used by the instance
Storage Optimized	if the instance is storage optimized
IP Addresses	the list of IP addresses used by the instance
Admin UI	indicates the availability of admin UI (applicable to Docker-based instances)
Actions	the icon with the list of available actions for the instance: Migrate Startup Shutdown Restart Destroy Promote (apply only to docker swarm workers) Demote (apply only to docker swarm managers) Restart Docker Engine (apply only to docker/swarm instances) Attach PCI devices Detach PCI devices

Instances index view

What should you see if there are no instances created?

If no instances/clusters exists you should see the following:

No instance

To create an instance/cluster, click the Create Instance button and go through the following steps:

Step 1 of 7 - Select to use CD/ISO

Select CD/ISO

Step 2 of 7 - Select between creating a single instance or a cluster of the same instances

Select cluster type

Step 3 of 7 - Select the Image template type

Select an image upon which the instance will be built.

Select image type

Step 4 of 7 - Select the flavour, the Resource Group, Network interfaces, Virtual disks and PCI device (if available)

Select the following resources for the instance:

VM Specifications
Resource Groups
Networks
Datastores
PCI devices

Select flavour

We have added a new flavour called windowsFLV for windows VM instance build

Windows instance flavour

Warning

The resources declared in flavour specification (cores,memory,root storage) should not exceed the maximum available resource values of the specified resource group

Warning

Different templates have minimum resource requirements. Make sure you select the flavours that meet these minimum requirements.

Step 5 of 7 - Optimize Storage for Low Latency

Specify if the instance will be optimized for low storage latency.

Select total number of hosts

Note

The default option is optimize for low latency

Step 6 of 7 - Adding public ssh keys to the VM

Add keypairs that will be used to access the instance.

Select keypairs

Step 7 of 7 - Finalise the Instance creation wizard

Provide a name and description for the instance.
Click the Finish button to create the instance.

Complete wizard

Full run down of a cluster create function (docker swarm version)

Complete cluster create wizard

Note

On step 4, we need to select the number of nodes our swarm will have as well the number of managers. Also We have the option to enable a graphical UI for our docker swarm, based on Portainer UI.