Virtual Machines Overview
Virtual machines run across your cluster. Each VM has its own virtual hardware — CPU, memory, disks, and network adapters — and runs a guest operating system independently from other VMs. The cluster distributes VMs across servers and can automatically migrate or restart them if a server goes offline.
Templates
VMs are created from templates. A template defines the base disk image, operating system type, and default settings such as minimum memory and hardware profile. Gallium provides a number of built-in templates for popular Linux distributions. Alternatively you can create your own templates. Templates are downloaded to the Cluster on demand and cached.
VM Detail Page
After creating a VM, you manage it from its detail page in the Console. The detail page is organized into the following sections:
- Dashboard — power state controls and access to the remote console
- Hardware — CPU and memory settings
- Storage — virtual disks
- ISOs — attached ISO images
- Network — network interface configuration
- Guest Agent — operating system information reported by the guest agent
- Tasks — history of operations performed on the VM
- Actions — live migration, deletion
- Settings — name, description, hardware profile, high availability and preferred hypervisor
Prerequisites
Before creating virtual machines, ensure you have configured:
- Networking — at least one network must exist for VMs to connect to.
- Disk Pools — at least one disk pool must have available storage for VM disks.