Creating a New Virtual Machine
Create a new virtual machine (VM) to install a guest operating system on your everRun system. (You can also migrate an existing VM or physical machine (PM), as summarized in Creating and Migrating Virtual Machines.)
Launch the VM Creation Wizard by clicking Create on the Virtual Machines page. The wizard steps you through the process of allocating resources to the VM.
Prerequisites:
- Review the prerequisites and considerations for allocating CPUs, memory, storage, and network resources to the VM, as listed in Planning Virtual Machine Resources.
- Create a bootable virtual CD (VCD) of the Windows or Linux installation media, as described in Creating a Virtual CD. The bootable VCD must be a single CD or DVD. Multiple CDs or DVDs are not supported.
- Ensure that both PMs of the everRun system are online; otherwise, the system cannot properly create the VM.
- If you want to protect the new VM with Disaster Recovery (DR), wait until after you finish installing the guest operating system. If necessary, open the VM console and verify that the guest is healthy and responsive before enabling DR protection in the One View Console.
To create a new VM
- On the Physical Machines page (see The Physical Machines Page), verify that both PMs are in the running state and that neither PM is in maintenance mode or in the process of synchronizing.
- On the Virtual Machines page (see The Virtual Machines Page), click Create to open the VM Creation Wizard.
- On the Name, Description, Protection and OS page:
- Type the Name and an optional Description for the VM as they will appear in the everRun Availability Console.
- Select the level of protection to use for the VM:
- Fault Tolerant (FT)—Transparently protects an application by creating a redundant environment for a VM running across two physical machines. Use FT for applications that need greater downtime protection than HA provides.
- High Availability (HA)—Provides basic failover and recovery, with some faults requiring an (automatic) VM reboot for recovery. Use HA for applications that can tolerate some downtime and that do not need the downtime protection that FT provides.
For more information about these levels of protection, see Modes of Operation.
- Select the Boot VCD that contains the operating system you want to install.
- Click Next.
- On the vCPUs and Memory page:
- Specify the number of vCPUs and the amount of Memory to assign to the VM. For more information, see Planning Virtual Machine vCPUs and Planning Virtual Machine Memory.
- Click Next.
- On the Volumes page:
- Type the Name of the boot volume as it will appear in the everRun Availability Console.
Type the Container Size and Volume Size of the volume to create in gigabytes (GB). The container size is the total size for the volume including extra space to store snapshots. The volume size is the portion of the container that is available to the guest operating system. For more information about allocating storage, see Sizing Volume Containers and Planning Virtual Machine Storage.
- Select the Disk Image format:
- RAW—raw disk format
- QCOW2—QEMU Copy On Write (QCOW2) format, which supports snapshots and Disaster Recovery
- If applicable, create additional data volumes by clicking Add New Volume and specifying the parameters for each volume. (You can also add volumes after you create the VM by using the Reprovision Virtual Machine wizard, as described in Creating a Volume in a Virtual Machine.)
- Click Next.
- On the Networks page, select the shared networks to attach to the VM (fr more information, see Planning Virtual Machine Networks). To continue, click Next.
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On the Creation Summary page:
- Review the creation summary. If you need to make changes, click Back.
- If you want to prevent a console session from automatically starting to observe the software installation, deselect Launch Console.
- To accept the VM as provisioned and begin the software installation, click Finish.
- If applicable, observe the progress of the installation of the operating system (allow pop-ups in your browser, if necessary) and respond to any prompts in the VM console session.
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After you install the operating system, configure the additional resources and software necessary for production use, as described in:
Caution: If the primary PM fails or the VM crashes before the final reboot after the installation process is completed, the installation of the VM may need to be restarted.