GPU-accelerated instances provide powerful parallel computing and graphics processing capabilities for demanding scenarios like large-scale data processing and rendering. They help you accelerate compute-intensive applications and meet professional-grade graphics design requirements. This topic describes how to create a GPU-accelerated instance.
Procedure
Go to the instance creation page.
Click the Custom Launch tab.
Select configurations such as the billing method, region, network and zone, instance type, and image based on your requirements.
For more information about the parameters, see Configuration details.
Before creating the order, review your instance configuration and set options such as the instance usage duration to ensure they meet your requirements.
The instance usage duration settings vary based on the instance's billing method:
Pay-as-you-go or spot instances: Set a time for the instance to be automatically released. You can also manually release the instance or schedule its automatic release later. For more information, see Release instances.
Subscription instances: Select the subscription duration and whether to enable auto-renewal. You can also manually renew the instance or configure auto-renewal later. For more information, see Renew a subscription instance.
Read and accept the terms of service. Then, click Create Order.
On the payment page, check the total fee for the instance and complete the payment.
Configuration details
Billing
The billing method determines an instance's pricing and billing rules. Rules for resource state changes also depend on the billing method.
Billing method | Description | References |
Subscription | You pay before you use the resource. | |
Pay-as-you-go | You pay after you use the resource. The billing cycle is accurate to the second. This allows you to purchase and release resources on demand. Note To reduce costs, use savings plans and reserved instances. | |
Spot Instance | You pay after you use the resource. Spot instances are available at a lower price than pay-as-you-go instances, but they may be automatically released due to market price changes or insufficient inventory of the instance type. |
Region
Regions are geographical locations where Alibaba Cloud data centers are deployed. Select a region that is close to your geographical location to reduce latency. After an instance is created, the region of the instance cannot be changed. For more information, see Regions and zones.
Network and zone
We recommend that you specify a virtual private cloud (VPC). VPCs are logically isolated from one another, ensure enhanced security, and support features such as Elastic IP Address (EIP), IPv6, and Elastic Network Interface (ENI).
A region consists of multiple isolated locations known as zones. A zone is a physical area that has an independent network and power supply. Resources that are deployed in the same zone share the network and have minimal latency between each other. Services deployed in the same zone provide faster communication speeds, which allows for more efficient business operations.
Network type | Description | References |
VPC | A VPC is a dedicated and isolated network that you can use for your business. You have full control over your VPC. For example, you can specify a private CIDR block and configure route tables and gateways for the VPC. If you did not create a VPC in the selected region, skip this step. The system automatically creates a default VPC and vSwitch in the region. Select an existing VPC and an existing vSwitch. Alternatively, click Create VPC and Create vSwitch to create a VPC and a vSwitch in the VPC console. After the VPC and the vSwitch are created, go back to the ECS instance buy page and click the Note If you want to assign an IPv6 address to the instance, select a VPC and a vSwitch for which an IPv6 CIDR block is enabled. |
Instance and image
The instance type and image define the basic attributes of an instance, such as vCPUs, memory, and the operating system.
Instance type
Available instance types vary based on the selected region. You can go to the Instance Types Available for Each Region page to view the available instance types in each region.
You may have specific configuration requirements for the instance. For example, you may want the instance to have multiple ENIs bound, use Enterprise SSDs (ESSDs), or use local disks. In this case, make sure that the selected instance type meets your business requirements. For information about the features, supported scenarios, and specifications of instance types, see Overview of instance families.
If you set the Billing Method parameter to Spot Instance, you must also configure the Instance Usage Duration and Highest Price per Instance parameters.
The Instance Usage Duration parameter specifies the protection period of a spot instance. After the protection period ends, the instance may be released due to insufficient resources or a lower bid than the market price.
Option
Description
1 Hour
After a spot instance is created, a 1-hour protection period starts. During the protection period, the instance cannot be automatically released.
None
A spot instance without a protection period is created. Spot instances without a protection period are more cost-effective than spot instances with a protection period.
Highest Price per Instance
Option
Description
Use Automatic Bid
The real-time market price of an instance type is automatically used. The price may vary but cannot exceed the pay-as-you-go price of the instance type. Automatic bidding can prevent the spot instance from being released due to lower bids than the market price, but cannot prevent the instance from being released due to insufficient resources.
Set Maximum Price
Specify a maximum price. If the real-time market price exceeds the maximum price or if resources are insufficient, the spot instance is released.
After you configure the instance, you can check the selected instance type information next to Selected.
Image
An image provides the information required to run an instance. Alibaba Cloud provides images from various sources, as shown in the following table.
Image source | Description |
Official, licensed base images provided by Alibaba Cloud, including Windows Server and mainstream Linux operating systems. | |
Images you create or import. These contain your pre-configured system environments, applications, and software, which saves you from repetitive setup. | |
Custom images shared by other Alibaba Cloud accounts, allowing you to use the same image to create instances across different accounts. | |
Images from Alibaba Cloud Marketplace are strictly reviewed and come in a wide variety. They allow you to deploy cloud servers for website building, application development, and other scenarios with a single click. | |
Community images are completely public. You can publish your own custom images as community images for others to use, or you can use community images published by others. |
When you select an image, you can choose whether to automatically install the NVIDIA Tesla driver or select a free image with a pre-installed NVIDIA GRID driver to load the corresponding driver. For more information, see Automatically install or load a Tesla driver when you create a GPU-accelerated instance and Automatically load a GRID driver using a community image that is pre-installed with the driver.
Storage
Instances provide storage capabilities based on the system disks, data disks, elastic ephemeral disks, and Apsara File Storage NAS (NAS) file systems that are attached to the instances. ECS provides cloud disks and local disks to meet the storage requirements in different scenarios.
Cloud disks include ESSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks and can be used as system disks or data disks. For more information, see Disks.
NoteThe billing method of a cloud disk that is created along with an instance is the same as that of the instance.
Local disks can be used only as data disks. If an instance type, such as an instance type of an instance family with local SSDs or a big data instance family, is equipped with local disks, information about the local disks is displayed. For more information, see Local disks.
NoteYou cannot manually attach local disks to instances.
System disk
System disks are used to install operating systems. The default capacity of a system disk is 40 GiB. However, the actual minimum capacity varies based on the image type. The following table describes the capacity ranges of system disks for different types of images.
Image | System disk capacity (GiB) |
Linux (excluding FreeBSD and Red Hat) | [max{20, Image size}, 2,048] |
FreeBSD | [max{30, Image size}, 2,048] |
Red Hat | [max{40, Image size}, 2,048] |
Windows | [max{40, Image size}, 2,048] |
(Optional) Data disk
Data disks are used to store application data. When you add a data disk, you can encrypt the disk to meet data security and regulatory compliance requirements. For information about data encryption, see Cloud disk encryption.
The number of data disks that can be attached to a single instance is limited. For more information, see the Block storage section in the "Limits" topic.
(Optional) Snapshot service
A snapshot is a point-in-time backup of a disk. You can quickly import data by creating a disk from a snapshot. You can use automatic snapshot policies to periodically back up disks to prevent risks such as accidental data deletion.
Select an existing snapshot policy or click Create Automatic Snapshot Policy to create an automatic snapshot policy on the Snapshots page. For more information, see Create an automatic snapshot policy. After the automatic snapshot policy is created, go back to the ECS instance buy page and click the 
icon to obtain the most recent list of automatic snapshot policies.
You are charged for snapshots. For information about the billing of snapshots, see Snapshots.
(Optional) Shared disk NAS
If you have a large amount of data to share among multiple instances, we recommend that you use NAS file systems to reduce costs in data copying and synchronization.
Select an existing NAS file system or click Create File System to create a NAS file system in the File Storage NAS console. For more information, see the Create a General-purpose NAS file system in the console section in the "Create a file system" topic. After the NAS file system is created, go back to the ECS instance buy page and click the icon to obtain the most recent list of NAS file systems. For information about how to mount a NAS file system to an instance, see Mount a Alibaba Cloud NAS file system when you create an ECS instance.
Bandwidth and security group
Network and security group settings provide public internet access, enable communication with other Alibaba Cloud resources, and secure your instance.
(Conditionally required) Public IP
To allow the instance to access the Internet, you must assign a public IP address to the instance. You can select Assign Public IPv4 Address in the Bandwidths & Security Groups section when you create an instance to have a public IP address automatically assigned to the instance. Alternatively, you can configure an EIP or a Network Address Translation (NAT) gateway after you create an instance to allow the instance to access the Internet. You must separately purchase an EIP and a NAT gateway. For more information, see What is an EIP? and What is NAT Gateway
Select Assign Public IPv4 Address and configure the Bandwidth Billing Method and Bandwidth or Maximum Bandwidth parameters.
For information about the billing of the public bandwidth, see Public bandwidth billing.
Bandwidth billing method | Description |
Pay-by-bandwidth | You are charged based on the specified bandwidth value. The actual outbound public bandwidth is capped at the specified bandwidth value.
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Pay-by-traffic | You are charged based on the actual traffic volume. To prevent excessive fees that are caused by traffic bursts, you can specify a maximum bandwidth for outbound traffic.
(Optional) Select Upgrade to CDT for Data Transfer Billing. Cloud Data Transfer (CDT) provides an efficient and cost-effective method for managing public bandwidth expenses. CDT supports flexible billing, free data transfer quota, tiered pricing, and unified billing for multiple Alibaba Cloud services. Compared with the pay-by-traffic billing method, the CDT billing method provides specific discounts. For more information, see What is CDT? Important
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Security group
A security group is a virtual firewall that is used to control the inbound and outbound traffic of instances in the security group. For more information, see Overview of security groups.
If the selected VPC does not have a security group, the system automatically creates a default security group. The default security group allows inbound traffic over SSH port 22, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port 3389, and Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP). You can add rules to allow inbound traffic over other ports based on your needs, such as port 80 and port 443. You can modify the security group configurations after the security group is created.
You can also select an existing security group or click the New Security Group tab and create a security group based on your business requirements. When you create a security group, configure the Security Group Name, Security Group Type, and Open IPv4 Ports/Protocols parameters.
For information about how to configure a security group, see Create a security group.
(Optional) Elastic network interface
ENIs include primary ENIs and secondary ENIs. You cannot unbind primary ENIs from instances. You can only create and release the ENIs along with the instances. You can bind or unbind secondary ENIs to or from instances to allow traffic to be switched between instances. To create a secondary ENI when you create an instance, click the 
icon and select a vSwitch to which the secondary ENI belongs.
You can bind only one secondary ENI when you create an instance. You can also create secondary ENIs and bind them to an instance after the instance is created. For information about the number of ENIs that can be bound to an instance of each instance type, see Overview of instance families.
(Optional) Configure IPv6
After you enable IPv6, the public IPv4 address depletion issue is resolved and a variety of devices can access the Internet.
Select Assign IPv6 Address Free of Charge. After you assign an IPv6 address, you must log on to the instance and configure an IPv6 address in the operating system to use the IPv6 address. For more information, see IPv6 communication.
Management settings
Management settings include logon credentials and tags, which are used to remotely connect to the instance and to easily search for and manage resources.
Logon credential
Logon Credential is used to ensure secure logon to an ECS instance. For information about how to connect to an ECS instance, see Choose an ECS remote connection method.
Logon credential | Description |
Key Pair Note You can use key pairs to log on only to Linux instances. | Select a username to use to log on to the instance. Then, select an existing key pair or click Create Key Pair to create a key pair. After the key pair is created, go back to the ECS instance buy page and click the You can set the Logon Username parameter to root or ecs-user. Warning If you log on to an ECS instance as the root user, you have the highest permissions on the instance. However, security risks may arise. We recommend that you log on to the ECS instance as the ecs-user user. |
Image Preset Password Note Only Custom Images and Shared Images support this authentication method. | To use the password preset in the selected image to log on to the instance, select this authentication method. If you want to select this option, make sure that your selected image has a password preset. |
Custom Password | Enter and confirm a password. Then, configure the Logon Username parameter.
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Set Later | After the instance is created, bind a key pair or reset the instance password. For more information, see Bind an SSH key pair and Reset the logon password of an instance. |
Tag
Each Tag consists of a tag key and a tag value. You can add tags to identify created instances, cloud disks, and primary ENIs to facilitate resource retrieval and management. You can select existing tags or specify a tag key and a tag value to create new tags. For more information about tags, see Tags.
(Optional) Advanced options
Advanced options include hostname, instance metadata, and user data, which are used to customize the information displayed or the way the instance is used in the console and operating system.
Parameter | Description |
Instance Name, Description, Hostname, and Sequential Suffix | When creating multiple instances, setting sequential instance names and hostnames helps you identify batches and other information from the names. For more information about rules for setting sequential names, see Batch configure sequential names or hostnames for multiple instances. |
Instance RAM role | An instance with a RAM role can use temporary Security Token Service (STS) tokens to access specified cloud service APIs and resources, which is more secure than using static credentials. Select an existing instance RAM role, or click Create Instance RAM Role to go to the RAM console and create one. After creation, return to the ECS instance creation wizard and click the |
Metadata Access Mode | Instance metadata includes information about the instance in the Alibaba Cloud system. You can conveniently view instance metadata from within a running instance and use it to configure or manage the instance. For more information about how to view instance metadata, see Instance metadata. |
User Data | You can use instance user data as a custom script to run when the instance starts, allowing for automated instance configuration, or you can pass it as plain data to the instance. For more information, see Customize instance initialization configurations. If you did not select the Install GPU Driver option in the Image section and you are familiar with automatic driver installation scripts, you can enter an automatic installation script in the User Data section to install the NVIDIA Tesla driver. For more information, see Install the driver using an automatic installation script. Note Enter your prepared instance user data in the input box. If the user data is Base64-encoded, select Enter Based64-encoded Content. |
Resource Group | Resource groups allow you to manage resources across regions and products from a business perspective and support permission management for resource groups. For more information, see Resource groups. Select an existing resource group, or click Create Resource Group to go to the Resource Management console and create one. After creation, return to the ECS instance creation wizard and click the |
Deployment Set | Deployment sets support high-availability policies. Instances within a deployment set are strictly distributed across different physical servers to ensure high business availability and underlying disaster recovery capabilities. Select an existing deployment set, or click Manage Deployment Sets to create one. After creation, return to the ECS instance creation wizard and click the |
Dedicated Host | A dedicated host is a physical server dedicated to a single tenant. This meets strict security and compliance requirements and allows you to Bring Your Own License (BYOL). Select an existing dedicated host, or click Create Dedicated Host to create one. After creation, return to the ECS instance creation wizard and click the |
Private Pool Type | When you create an elastic assurance or a capacity reservation, the system automatically generates a private pool to reserve a specific quantity of instances with specific attributes. Creating an instance from an associated private pool provides resource certainty. For more information, see Overview of Resource Advisor. Note Elastic assurances and capacity reservations only guarantee resource supply certainty for pay-as-you-go instances.
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What to do next
Connect to the instance
You can connect to an instance in various ways, including using Workbench, VNC, and third-party client tools. For more information, see Choose an ECS remote connection method.
Install drivers
If the Tesla or GRID driver was not automatically installed when you created the GPU-accelerated instance, you must install the appropriate driver for your use case to enable the instance's high-performance features. For more information, see Installation guideline for NVIDIA Tesla and GRID drivers.
References
To create a GPU-accelerated instance using an API, see RunInstances or CreateInstance.
To perform operations such as enabling, hibernating, restarting, releasing, or stopping a created instance, see Manage a GPU-accelerated instance.
After deploying an NGC environment on a GPU-accelerated instance, developers can immediately access optimized deep learning frameworks, significantly reducing product development and service deployment time. For more information, see Deploy an NGC environment to build a deep learning development environment.
To troubleshoot or resolve functional or operational issues when using GPUs, see FAQ about GPU-accelerated instances.