Overview Customer Login Main Page VM Management Creation... 4 Editing a Virtual Machine... 6

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1 July 2013

2 Contents Overview... 2 Customer Login... 2 Main Page... 2 VM Management... 4 Creation... 4 Editing a Virtual Machine... 6 Disk Management... 7 Deletion... 7 Power On / Off... 8 Network Management... 9 Recovery VM s FAQ s Page 1 Last saved: July 2013

3 Overview This document is a user guide to InTechnology s Infrastructure as a Service and Virtual Hosting Services. Customer Login Access to the service provisioning platform is available from: The user name and password used to access the service are the same as used to access the InTechnology customer inform portal. New customers of the service will be setup as part of the service delivery. Existing customers can request additional contact access via InTechnology s Customer Support or Account Management teams. After successful login to the service provisioning portal the main page is displayed. This gives access to the all the provisioning and management tools for the service. Main Page / Virtual Machine List The main page of the customer screen shown below is seen after login, to return to this page at any time click VM List from the left hand menu. Page 2 Last saved: July 2013

4 The main page displays the customer s provisioning quotas and virtual machines. The quota table columns have the following meanings: Data Centre Current Machines powered on Powered on points limit Current powered on points Available points Lists the data centres that the customer can provision virtual machines from. Lists the number of virtual machines powered on within each data centre. Lists the points quota for powered on virtual machines within each data centre. Customers cannot exceed the powered on points limit within each data centre. Lists the customer s virtual machine points consumption within each data centre. Lists available virtual machine points within each data centre. The virtual machine table columns have the following meanings: VM Name: DR: Size: Status Tools The name given to the virtual machine by the customer. The virtual machine status. Default provision status is Normal VM. Alternate provision status is Recovery VM and defines a placeholder virtual machine to be used for server disaster recovery. The CPU and RAM resources allocated to the virtual machine. The status of the virtual machine with Powered on or Powered off. Displays the status of VMware Tools running within the virtual machine. Can be: Not running ; Not installed ; Running (out-dated), or OK VMware Tools is a software package installed on the virtual machine that allows integration with the power on, reset functions etc. Data Centre Identifies the data centre where the virtual machine is placed. Selecting a machine row will highlight the toolbar at the top of the screen. This allows the user to power-on, power-off, suspend, restart or reboot the virtual machine. Clicking on the machine name will open the details page for the virtual machine giving the ability to view and change the configuration of the virtual machine. Page 3 Last saved: July 2013

5 VM Management Creation Click on the New VM button, on the top right of the main page (VM list), to create a new virtual machine. This process will consume additional storage when the virtual machine is created and will incur additional service charge for the storage, whether the machine is powered on or off. The New VM button opens up the following window. From here a new virtual machine can be defined. The fields needed are listed below. Name Data Centre Storage Class OS Family OS Type Template Defines the virtual machine name within the service provisioning portal. This does not define the hostname of the server. Defines which data centre to provision the virtual server from. The options available will reflect the available data centres as part of the customer provisioning quotas. Defines the storage class to provision the virtual server from. The options available will reflect the available storage classes as part of the customer provisioning quotas. Choose from the available operating systems families supported by the service, for example Windows or Linux. The selection influences the OS Type field. This selection box narrows down the sub types for the selected OS Family. For example selecting Windows OS Family provides list including Windows Server 2012, 2008 R2, 2008, etc. Select either an InTechnology prepared virtual machine template for the OS Family and Type, or a customer provided template. A template includes OS packages and OS Patches. The customer is responsible for determining the most suitable template for the application(s). Page 4 Last saved: July 2013

6 Size Select the CPU and RAM resources to allocate to the virtual server. For customers on the Virtual Server Hosting service the customer will be able to choose from predefined virtual hardware combinations, such as Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, etc. For customers on the Infrastructure as a Service the customer will be able to separately allocate CPU and RAM resource. Network Description: Choose a network to attach the virtual machine to when powered on. Free form text window that allows comments or a description to be entered. When all the details have been completed the submit button should be selected. This will submit the create request and change the user interface to display the Recent Tasks window where the progress of the creation can be tracked. The new machine will not show up in the VM List window until the machine has been created successfully. Page 5 Last saved: July 2013

7 Editing a Virtual Machine Throughout the life of the virtual machine, the configuration of the machine can be viewed and changed. To access the edit/view window for the virtual machine open the VM List page and click the name of the virtual machine as shown below. This will open the details window. Page 6 Last saved: July 2013

8 The tabs across the top allow the following functions: VM Details Manage NIC Manage Disk Change Storage Class Delete VM View/change the virtual machine name, description, size, mount a virtual CD and open the virtual machine console. View/change the number of virtual machine network cards and which networks the virtual machine network cards are connected to. Add or remove the number of disks to the virtual machine. Migrate the virtual machine between storage classes. Allows the deletion of the virtual machine. When editing any of the tabs of virtual machine settings the virtual machine must be in the poweredoff state, with the exception of the following: CD Image, Description, Edit Network and Change Storage Class. Disk Management Disks can be added to and removed from the virtual server. When a disk is added it is presented to the operating system as a new device that will need configuring into the virtual machine guest operating system. Adding a disk will consume additional storage and will be incur an additional service charge. The charge is based on the allocated capacity of the disk and not what is stored on the disk. Storage Management A virtual machine exists on one storage class. It is possible to move a virtual machine from one storage class to another using the Change Storage Class tab when editing a virtual machine. The storage classes available will depend on the contract signed with InTechnology and are as follows: Storage Class Description Recommended uses Standard Performance High Performance Suited to workloads where capacity is the main requirement. Utilises high capacity and low spin speed (7.2k rpm) disks with an average response time of 30 50ms Suited to workloads where a mix of capacity and transactional performance is required. Utilises low capacity and high spin speed (15k rpm) disks with an average response time of 20 30ms Suited to workloads where transactional performance is the main requirement. Utilises low capacity and high spin speed (15k rpm) disks, supplemented with solid state disks to deliver an average response time of 10 15ms File servers Web servers AD servers Test servers Database servers Mail servers Citrix servers Special use case servers Deletion Follow the instructions for Edit Virtual Machine and select the Delete tab. This will prompt for confirmation and then delete the virtual machine. Page 7 Last saved: July 2013

9 Power On / Off The following tool bar is displayed in the VM List view and the VM Details view for each virtual machine. The tool bar allows the state of the virtual machine to be changed in the following ways: Power on Power off Suspend Reset Shutdown Restart Power on the virtual machine. This is equivalent to pressing the power on button on a physical machine. The virtual machine will start up and boot the installed operating system. Power off the virtual machine. This is equivalent to pressing the power off button on a physical machine. The virtual machine will be switched off without shutting down the operating system. Most operating systems will need to go through some form of checking on restart if this button is used. The virtual machine will be suspended. Whilst it is suspended it will not consume any processing resources. Resets the virtual machine. This is equivalent to a hardware power off followed by a hardware power on. This button sends a shutdown message to the operating system via VM Tools. In windows this is equivalent to issuing the start-> shutdown command. This button sends a restart message to the operating system via VM Tools. Page 8 Last saved: July 2013

10 Network Management Virtual machines need connecting to other virtual machines or external devices such as routers, firewalls and physical servers. These connections are configured in the Manage Network menu. To preserve valuable resource, please configure and deploy as few networks as possible. Networks created by customers that are unused may be removed as part of regular maintenance tasks. The following columns are shown: Network Data Centre Type Usage Delete The customer defined name of the network. Clicking on the network name will show the list of machines connected to the network. Defines which data centre the network is allocated to. This can be Internal, External or Public. External and Public networks can only be created by InTechnology Staff. This is the count of the number of machines connected to this network. This link allows the customer to delete a network. It will only be clickable if the Usage count is 0. To create a new network press the Add Network button at the top of the window. This prompts for a network name and the data centre. When complete press the save button. The new network will only show in the Manage Networks screen when it has been completed correctly. This will take a few minutes to complete, the progress can be tracked in the Recent Tasks view. Page 9 Last saved: July 2013

11 Recovery VM s The Recovery VM tab provides an area where virtual machines can be defined for disaster recovery purposes. This allows the customer to define virtual machines ahead of a recovery scenario, to speed up the recovery process. The restore process is intended for use by InTechnology s Managed Backup Service, whereby customers can perform image backups of critical on-premise servers and recover to InTechnology hosting service. This utilises a Bare Metal Restore agent to enable the translation between the customer s server hardware and the destination virtual machine hardware, whilst also allowing direct recovery of the customer server onto the virtual machine bare metal. Defining Virtual Machine Recovery Groups The first step in the process is to select the Add Group button the Recovery VMs section of the service provisioning portal. This gives the following screen. The following columns are shown: Group Name Data Centre The customer defined name of the recovery group of virtual machines. Defines which data centre the recovery group is provisioned from. When complete press the submit button. The new recovery group will only show in the Recovery VMs screen when it has been completed correctly. This will take a few minutes to complete, the progress can be tracked in the Recent Tasks view. Once completed, select the recovery group name and navigate to the VMs tab to create virtual machine containers in readiness for a recovery scenario. Page 10 Last saved: July 2013

12 Click on the Add VM button to define a virtual machine container. The following screen is shown. This follows the same format as the creation of a new virtual machine detailed earlier in this user guide. Click on submit once complete to create the virtual machine. Repeat this process as required to pre-define the recovery virtual machines needed. The progress can be monitored via the Recent Tasks screen. Invoking the Virtual Machine Recovery Process At this point the virtual machines have only been created as container configurations within the service provisioning portal. To invoke the recovery process, navigate to the Deploy tab, with the following screen. Page 11 Last saved: July 2013

13 The Deploy table columns have the following meaning: Storage Class Recovery Network CD Image Select the storage class to deploy the virtual machines to. Select the predefined network to deploy the virtual machines to. Select the virtual CD Image to boot the virtual machine from on first power-on. Select the latest Evault System Restore version to perform a bare metal restore via InTechnology s Managed Backup Service. Click on the Deploy button when ready to deploy the virtual machines. This process will provision the virtual machines on the service and will consume additional storage as defined for each virtual machine. This will incur an additional service charge for the additional storage. The progress can be monitored via the Recent Tasks screen. Managing an Existing Recovery Deployment Navigate to the Recovery Group Deployments tab to view existing recovery virtual machine deployments. The following screen is shown. The customer has the choice to delete the deployment, removing all recovery virtual machines. Alternatively the customer can make the deployment permanent and transfer the servers from Recovery VM to Normal VM status. Page 12 Last saved: July 2013

14 FAQ s Question Can virtual machines be cloned? Can virtual machines snapshots be taken? Can the virtual machine performance be viewed? Answer Yes, however the clones can only be created by InTechnology due to administration restrictions to customers. The process involved raising a ticket with InTechnology s support team who will then provide a timescale in which the clone will be completed. No, snapshots of virtual machines cannot be performed. Yes, virtual machine performance graphs can be viewed through the vsphere client. The can be arranged by raising a support ticket with InTechnology s support team who will provide the vsphere client and vsphere server address. Page 13 Last saved: July 2013

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