ENS:Create an instance

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure that you have:

• Activated the ENS service. See Activate ENS

• Confirmed the instance types and regions you need. Contact your Alibaba Cloud account manager to request access to specific types and regions

Considerations

Review the following constraints before you start:

• Billing method: Subscription is available for all instance types. Pay-as-you-go is available for X86 compute-optimized instance types only.

• Public NICs: Configuring a public network interface controller (NIC) is supported only for X86 compute-optimized, X86 bare machine, and ARM compute-optimized instance types. If an instance has multiple NICs, manually configure the default NIC for Internet access.

• Security groups: Available for X86 compute-optimized and ARM compute-optimized instance types only.

• System disk: Capacity must be a multiple of 10 and at least 20 GB, and must be greater than or equal to the default capacity of the selected image. If the system disk is larger than the image default, scale out the partitions and file systems after creation.

• Disk selection: X86 bare machine, X86 bare metal, and heterogeneous bare metal instance types do not support selecting system disks or data disks.

• Key pairs: Available only for Linux instances of X86 compute-optimized, heterogeneous virtual machine, and ARM compute-optimized types.

• Instance status: For details on how instance status changes during creation and management, see Instance statuses.

Create an instance

1. Log on to the ENS console.

2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Computing Power and Images > Instances.

3. On the Instances page, click Create Instance.

4. Configure Basic Configurations.

   Parameter	Description
   Billing method	Select Subscription or Pay-as-you-go. See Considerations for instance type restrictions.
   Instance type	ENS supports X86 compute-optimized, X86 bare metal, and heterogeneous computing instance types. Select a type based on your workload. Instance type notation: C = vCPU, G = memory (for example, 4C8G = 4 vCPU cores, 8 GB memory). To request a specific instance type, submit a ticket or contact your Alibaba Cloud account manager.
   Image	Select a Custom image or Public image. Custom images can be sourced from different regions — create one from an existing instance (Create a custom image from an instance) or using a build machine (Use a build machine to create a custom image). Public images include third-party commercial images and open source images. See Public images.

5. Configure Network and Storage.

   Parameter	Description
   Network	Select Managed Network or Self-built Network. With Managed Network, ENS allocates a default CIDR block and lets you schedule computing power by region, province, city, edge zone, or regions outside China. If you schedule by region, province, or city, enter a node scheduling policy to select suitable edge zones. If you schedule by edge zone or regions outside China, instances are created only within the specified scope. Select Self-built Network to use a custom CIDR block.
   Region	Select a region and specify the number of instances. If you add a public NIC, specify the billing method, IP type, ISP (Internet Service Provider), and bandwidth throttling for that NIC. See Considerations for public NIC support by instance type. For public bandwidth pricing, see Public bandwidth billing.
   System disk and data disks	Select the type and capacity for the system disk and data disks. The billing method for cloud disks matches the instance billing method. See Considerations for capacity rules and instance type restrictions.
   Security group	Select a security group. A security group acts as a virtual firewall to control network access. See Considerations for supported instance types.

6. Configure System Settings.

   Parameter	Description
   Password settings	Set a logon password or use a key pair. See Considerations for key pair support by instance type.
   Instance name	Set the instance name and hostname. To name multiple instances sequentially, use the format namePrefix[beginNumber,bits]nameSuffix. The maximum value of bits is 6. The sequential suffix starts at 001 and increments up to 999.
   Tags	Add tags to the instance for resource organization.
   Advanced settings	Enter custom data to run as a startup script when the instance boots. Use this to automate instance configuration or pass data to the instance at launch.

7. Review your configuration, select the Edge Node Service (ENS) Terms of Service checkbox, and click Confirm Order. To auto-renew the instance at expiration, select Enable Auto-renewal.

8. On the payment page, select Use Credits if applicable, then click Purchase.

   • Subscription: You are redirected to the payment page. After you complete the payment, the instance is created.

   • Pay-as-you-go: Instance creation starts immediately after you click Purchase.

Verify the instance

After the instance is created, log on to the instance to verify that the configuration is correct and that data migration completed successfully.

To check the current instance status, see Instance statuses.

What's next

• Manage your instance from the Instances page in the ENS console.

• To monitor instance status at any time, see Instance statuses.