An introduction to the HP Cloud

Logging into the console

You must log in to get to the dashboard. The console at https://console.hpcloud.com/login is secured using TLS. In fact, the whole site is secure.

Try editing the URL and changing https to the insecure http. You get bounced right back to https again.

Choose an availability zone

The Dashboard page shows three availability zones for HP Cloud computing, all listed as US West.

Click an Activate Now button. You are redirected to an Account page.

Create a payment method

Create a payment method.

You can get to the console without handing over your credit card details, but you can’t use the services.

Activate

Once your details have been verified, you are good to go.

Click an Activate Now button and the Compute page appears.

Availability zone

If you are only starting one machine, you only need one Availability Zone.

Multiple availability zones are used to stop an outage bringing down a cluster of servers.

Servers

The Servers page is where the good stuff is.

The free offer applies to the standard.xsmall flavor.

Available images

HP Cloud provides many ready-rolled images. The operating systems include CentOS, Fedora and Ubuntu.

Creating keys

Use the Key Pairs page to create a new public key and private key.

HP, like AWS, uses uses public key cryptography to secure access to new VMs.

The HP Cloud instance builder adds your public key to each new machine.

Copy your private key

When you click the Create Key button, the key’s fingerprint and private key appear.

 This is your only opportunity to copy the new private key. Keep this copy safe. If you lose it, you can’t get it back. If someone else copies it, they can pretend to be you.

Building your new machine

Create a new HP Cloud instance. The first row in your Running Instances table appears.

After a minute or two, the Build(spawning) message in the status column changes to Active.

You can now use the new machine. Connecting to your new HP Cloud instance is similar to connecting to an AWS instance - use the private key and PuTTY.

Server Details

Each instance in the Running Instances table has an identification number, such as 623153. 

This number is a link that takes you to the Server Details page.

Destroying an image

When you are finished with your new instance, destroy it (you can easily make another).

Use the Terminate button on the Server Details page.

Log out

When you finish your HP Cloud session, clean up and log out.

Don’t rely on your computer’s screen lock to keep others from playing on your console.