Create a VM

Perform this task to create a VM on a host or in a cluster. When you create a VM in a cluster, the system creates the VM on the host with the least VMs and the lowest memory and CPU usage ratios. To use a VM, you must install an operating system for it.

Procedure

Add a VM:

On the top navigation bar, click Resources.

From the left navigation pane, select Compute > Host Pool Name > Cluster Name, Compute > Host Pool Name > Cluster Name > Host Name, or Compute > Host Pool Name > Host Name.

Click Add VM.

Follow the configuration wizard to configure the VM parameters.

Install an OS for the VM:

From the left navigation pane, select the VM.

Click the Console tab.

Click Java Console or Webpage Console.

Click Virtual Drive to load a local image file.

Parameters

VMs on ARM hosts do not support SR-IOV passthrough NICs.

x86 hosts

Basic settings

Operating System: Select the operating system installed on the VM. To avoid drive operation and operating system installation failures, make sure the operating system you actually install is the same as the selected operating system in type and version.

Auto Migration: Enable this feature to enable the VM to automatically migrate in the cluster after DRS or DPM takes effect.

CAStools Upgrade: Enable this feature to enable the system to automatically upgrade the CAStools of the VM.

CPU settings

CPU: Specify the CPU sockets, which cannot exceed the number of CPUs on the host. Windows 7 supports a maximum of two CPUs. To improve processing performance, you can set multiple cores for each CPU.

CPU Cores: Specify the CPU cores. The number of CPU cores of a VM cannot exceed that of the host.

Max. CPUs: Set the maximum CPUs can be assigned to the VM, which is the number of CPU sockets multiplied by the number of CPU cores.

Bind Physical CPU: Bind the vCPUs of the VM to one or multiple physical CPUs of the host. After that, the VM can use only the bound physical CPUs. To avoid misbindings between vCPUs and NUMA nodes as well as VM startup failures, do not disable hyper-threading on the host after binding vCPUs to physical CPUs.

CPU Mode: Select a CPU operating mode. You can configure the default CPU mode on the system parameters page.

Compatible—Virtualizes physical CPUs of different models into vCPUs of the same model. This mode features good migration compatibility.

Host Model—Virtualizes physical CPUs of different models into vCPUs of different models. This mode features bad compatibility but provides better performance for OSs of VMs than the Compatible mode.

Host Passthrough—Passes physical CPUs to VMs. This mode features bad compatibility but provides better performance for OSs of VMs than the Compatible and Host Matching modes. VMs with the passthrough CPU operating mode can be migrated only between hosts with the same CPU model.

Architecture: Select a CPU architecture. A 32-bit operating system supports both the 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. A 64-bit operating system supports only the 64-bit architecture. If you select the 32-bit architecture for a VM using a 64-bit operating system, the VM cannot be started.

Schedule Priority: Select a priority for the processes on the VM to preempt physical CPU resources.

Reserve: Enter the CPU size of the host to reserve for the VM.

Limit: Enter the maximum host CPU frequency that a single CPU core of the VM can use.

Overall CPU Limit: Select whether to enable overall CPU limit. For example, if you set maximum host CPU frequency that a single CPU core can use to 2 GHz and enable overall CPU limit for a VM that has 4 CPU cores, the maximum host CPU frequency is 8 GHz for both the VM and a single CPU core of the VM.

Hot Remove: Select whether to enable online CPU scale-down. A VM supports online CPU scale-down only when its operating system supports online CPU scale-down.

Hot Add: Select whether to enable hot add of CPUs. A VM supports hot add of CPUs only when its operating system supports hot add of CPUs.

I/O Priority: Select an I/O priority for the processes on the VM to read/write the disk.

Memory settings

Memory: Specify the memory size. The memory size is the memory size of the VM OS. The maximum memory size available for the VM depends on the physical memory size.

Reserve: Enter the memory size to be reserved for the VM to the total available memory size of the host in percentage. The host allocates specific memory to a VM based on the actual memory usage of the VM. You can reserve memory for a VM in case the VM needs more memory after the host memory is exhausted.

Limit: Enter the maximum host memory size that the VM can use.

Resource Priority: Select the priority for the VM to request memory resources.

Ballooning: Select whether to enable ballooning. With ballooning enabled, the system dynamically allocates host memory to VMs without shutting down VMs. To use this feature, you must install CAStools on the VM and do not perform memory hot-add.

HugePages: Select whether to enable VMs to use HugePages memory of hosts. You can turn on this option only if the HugePages feature is enabled on the host and the VM is shut down. In addition, this feature is mutually exclusive with memory reservation, memory limit, resource priority, and ballooning.

Network settings

Network: Select a virtual switch for the VM.

Port Profile: Select a port profile for the VM. A port profile defines the VLAN, ACL, and network bandwidth settings for a VM. The ACL configuration in the port profile does not take effect when virtual firewalls are configured.

Virtual Firewall: Select virtual firewalls for the VM. You can rearrange the virtual firewalls by dragging and dropping to change their priorities. To increase the priority of a virtual firewall, move it upwards. To decrease the priority of a virtual firewall, move it downwards. The default action of a virtual firewall is deny. You can click Add to add more virtual firewalls. For information about virtual firewall configuration, see "Manage vFirewalls" The incoming and outgoing data packets of the VM will be filtered based on the firewall rules.

You can edit the default firewall action only when both denylist and allowlist firewall rules are configured.

NIC Type: Select a NIC type. High-speed NICs are driven by CVK. If you select High-Speed NIC, fast forwarding is enabled by default. If you select SR-IOV Passthrough NIC, you must select a driver type and VLAN ID.

Driver Type: Select a driver type for the SR-IOV passthrough NIC.

Bound IPv4/IPv6 Address: Enter the IP address bound to the MAC address of the VM’s NIC. If the IP address specified for the VM's NIC is different from the bound IP address, the NIC cannot communicate correctly.

MAC Assignment: Select a MAC address assignment mode.

VLAN ID: Select a VLAN ID for the VM NIC. This parameter is available only when the NIC type is SR-IOV Passthrough NIC.

Fast Forwarding: Enable fast forwarding to improve the network performance of the VM. This feature is available only for high-speed NICs.

Queue Number: Set the number of queues for the virtual NIC. Multi-queue support can enhance data processing performance for the virtual NIC. The default value is 1, and the maximum value is the vCPU count × cores. This parameter is available for high-speed NICs with fast forwarding enabled.

MTU: Set the MTU of the VM's NIC. This parameter is applicable only to common, high-speed, and Intel e1000 NICs.

Disk settings

Disk: Configure the storage volume used as the VM disk and the storage pool to which the storage volume belongs.

Type: Specify a disk type.

New File: For the VM, a file is a disk based on a virtual disk file. This disk type is more manageable than the block device disk type. If you select this option, an empty file is created as the disk of the VM.

Create RBD: If you select this option, create an RBD as the disk of the VM in an RBD storage pool.

Existing File: If you select this option, specify an existing storage file that is not used by other VMs as the disk of the VM.

Block Device: A block device is also called a raw device, which does not have a file system, for example, a storage LUN on an IP SAN or FC SAN. Block devices are typically used in a virtualization environment that requires high performance, for example, databases and high-performance I/O compute.

Storage Pool: Select the target storage pool of the new disk.

File Name: Enter the file name of the disk if a new file is used as the disk. Select a disk format. The raw format provides high I/O efficiency.

Associate Block Device for CBT Backup: Select a storage volume not used by any VMs to store CBT backup data. The size of the storage volume cannot be smaller than the disk size of the VM. The storage volume must reside in an iSCSI network storage pool starting with /dev/disk/by-id/ or an FC network storage pool. Configure this parameter when the VM disk type is block device.

Provision: Select a storage volume provision mode. This parameter is available only when the disk type is New File.

Thin—Allocates only as much storage space as the storage volume needs for its initial operations when the storage volume is created. If the storage volume needs more storage space later, you can allocate as much storage space as the volume would require based on the specified maximum storage size.

Lazy Zeroed—Allocates the specified maximum storage size to the storage volume when the storage volume is created. Data remaining on the physical device is not erased during creation, but is zeroed out on first write from the VM.

Eager Zeroed—Allocates the specified maximum storage size to the storage volume when the storage volume is created. Data remaining on the physical device is zeroed out during creation. It might take a longer time to create storage volumes in this format than to create storage volumes of other formats.

Disk Cluster Size: Set the smallest amount of disk space that can be used to store a file. If a file is larger than a disk cluster, it is stored in multiple disk clusters. If a file is smaller than a disk cluster, it is stored in a dedicated disk cluster. A shared file system is mainly used to store VM image files. As a best practice, set the value of this parameter as large as possible to enhance disk read performance and save disk space. You must configure this parameter when you add an intelligent disk.

Bus Type: Select a bus type.

Cache Mode: Select a cache mode for VM storage files.

Directsync—The system reads data from the physical disk. By default, the cache mode is directsync when the disk format is qcow2.

Writethrough—The system writes data to the host cache, and then to the physical disk.

Writeback—The system writes data to the VM cache, then to the host cache, and finally to the physical disk.

None—The system writes data to the VM cache, and then to the physical disk. By default, the cache mode is none when the disk format is raw or block (including RBD).

Disk Mode: Select whether to include the VM's disk in external snapshots. This parameter is available only when the VM uses a file-type disk.

Dependent—Includes the disk in external snapshots. When you use an external snapshot to restore the VM, the disk is also restored.

Independent-Persistent——Does not include the disk in external snapshots. When you use an external snapshot to restore the VM, the disk is not restored.

Serial Number: Enter the serial number of the disk.

Floppy disk settings

Floppy Disk: Select a floppy disk. The system will automatically load the high-speed driver compatible with the selected OS version.

CD-ROM settings

CD-ROM: Select a CD/DVD or image file. To avoid migration failure when the destination host does not have a physical CD-ROM drive, unmount the physical CD-ROM drive from a VM after the VM finishes using that drive.

Connection Mode: Select a connection mode.

Hardware settings

Add Hardware: Select the hardware to add for the VM, including NIC, disk, CD-ROM drive, floppy drive, GPU device, USB device, remote USB device, PCI device, and watchdog.

As a best practice to ensure the startup of a VM, follow these restrictions when you add PCI devices for a VM:

If the memory size of a VM is smaller than 2 GB, the total memory size of PCI devices added to the VM cannot exceed 2 GB.

If the memory size of a VM is larger than 2 GB, the total memory size of PCI devices added to the VM cannot exceed 1 GB.

Configure the following parameters to add hardware:

GPU Device: Select a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) device. A GPU device acts a CPU to process images so that the CPU can perform other tasks. A VM that has a GPU or vGPU device mounted does not support cloud rainbow. If the VM is attached with a vGPU device, the following actions are not allowed when the VM is in running state: hibernate, clone as template, convert as template, and clone. If the VM is attached with a GPU device, the following actions are not allowed when the VM is in running state: hibernate, clone as template, convert as template, clone, migration by changing host, and migration by changing host and storage.

Resource Pool: Select a resource pool, which contains all available GPUs in the cluster. If you select a GPU resource pool, the VM accesses the physical GPU resources of the host through GPU passthrough. If you select a vGPU resource pool, the VM accesses the vGPU resources of the host.

Service Template: Select a service template. The service template defines the rule that how VMs use the GPU resources on the host. The host allocates these resources to VMs based on the priorities of the VMs.

Driver Type: Select a driver type.

Exclusive Mode: Select whether the VM can exclusively use the specified GPU/vGPU resources. If you select Yes, the GPU/vGPU resources cannot be used by any other VMs. This feature is available only when the host has available GPU/vGPU resources that have been added to the selected GPU resource pool. To migrate a VM when this feature is enabled, make sure sufficient GPU/vGPU resources are available on the target host. VMs that use vGPUs can be migrated when they are in running state. VMs that use GPUs can be migrated only when they are not running.

Resource Count: Set the maximum number of GPU/vGPU resources that can be used by the VM. The value depends on the resource pool type and state of the exclusive mode feature:

If you select a vGPU resource pool, only 1 is available.

If you select a GPU resource pool and exclusive mode is disabled, the value is the maximum number of GPUs on a single host in the resource pool. For example, if the resource pool has three hosts, and the hosts have three, two, and two GPUs, respectively, the value is 3.

If you select a GPU resource pool and exclusive mode is enabled, the value is the number of available GPUs on the host attached to the VM.

Watchdog: Select the action to take on VMs upon receipt of interrupt requests.

ARM hosts