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Adding hardware to your BusinessCloud Virtual Machine

This article will explain how to add hardware to your BusinessCloud Virtual Machine including CPU, RAM, NICs, storage and VMware tools.

Please note that your Business Cloud hardware configuration is your responsibility and will not be supported by our Hosting Support Team.

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Before adding more RAM or CPUs, it's best to check if your plan already includes the wanted resource. Plan pricing is available on the iiNet Business Cloud site. You can view how much resources you're currently utilizing on Toolbox, or within vCloud Director:

  1. Go to Administration > Virtual Datacenters.
     
  2. Click on Monitor. The bar displays how much CPU, RAM and storage are already allocated.
     
  3. Right click on the name of the wanted vDC> Properties for further statistics.
     
  4. You must shut down the VM in order to add a hardware resources, else the option to change the hardware would be grayed-out. In Go to My Cloud > VMs. Power off the machine. You can also shut down the VM from its operating system.
     

    5. Virtual Machine screenshot
     

  5. Right click on the VM. Click on Properties.

    6. Virtual Machine screenshot
     

  6. Click on the Hardware tab. Modify the wanted resource and click OK.
     
  7. You can now right-click and Power on the VM.

 

When setting up a virtual machine, you can either upload one of your own with the wanted resources, or create one from the catalogue. If you choose to set up a VM from a template, you'll be getting a virtual machine with pre-configured resources. The Windows Server 2008 R2 catalogue template, for instance, includes a non-modifiable 30GB hard disk, as demonstrated in the following screenshot.

If you run out of space on your virtual machine's hard drive, you can increase it by adding another hard drive to the VM. Virtual hardware is based on software and behaves differently than physical hardware. Having two separate virtual hard disks entails no significant delays in data transfer, like you would expect from separate physical disks.

You will need to shut down the VM in order to add a hard disk ("cold-plugging"), or before applying other hardware-related changes.

  1. On vCloud Director, click on My Cloud > VMs.

    2. Virtual Machine screenshot
     

  2. Power off your VM, either from within the operating system itself or using right-click, Power off.
     
  3. Click on Add, scale your hard drive to the wanted size and click on OK. You can check how much storage space you have left on your Business Cloud plan on Toolbox. If you want to estimate the cost of adding storage, you can use the iiNet Business Cloud pricing calculator.
     
  4. The VM status should read 'Adding Hard Disk', and then 'Updating'.

    5. Virtual Machine screenshot
     

  5. When the status changes back to 'Powered Off', you can right-click the VM and click on Power On And Force Recustomisation, for the changes to take effect.
     
  6. Your VM's operating system will now have an extra hard disk to mount.
     

VMware Tools is a suite of drivers and utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine. It is highly recommended to install it on any VM, since  it allows better support in display, sound, mouse functions and even hot-plugging certain hardware (no need to power your server off). More info on VMware Tools features is available on the official site.

  1. In vCloud Director, go to My Cloud > VMs.
     
  2. Right click the on the wanted VM, make sure it is powered on and Install VMware Tools.
     
  3. The status should change to "Installing VMware Tools...". The operating system will mount a CDROM on /dev/sr0 or /dev/cdrom on a Linux machine, or X: on a Windows one, and install the software from it.

    4. Virtual Machine screenshot
     

  4. When the status changes back to OK, VMware tools should be available on your operating system.

If you require assistance using vCloud Director you can click Help at the top right of the vCloud Director page to access the User Help section, or contact iiNet Hosting on 1300 378 638 or support@iinethosting.net.au.