An introduction to the HP Cloud
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HP Cloud home page
ntNote: This gallery summarizes the steps in two associated blog posts: “How to set up an HP Cloud account” and “How to create and destroy an HP cloud server.” See the individual posts for more detailed steps and explanation.
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ntThe HP Cloud landing page is at https://www.hpcloud.com. This public cloud service is available for anyone to use. It’s new and, for the time being, it’s cheap.
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ntBefore creating a VM (Virtual Machine), you must set up an HP Cloud account. Press the big Get Started Now button.
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ntClick the Console link top right to get to Login page.
Logging into the console
ntYou 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.
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ntTry editing the URL and changing https to the insecure http. You get bounced right back to https again.
Choose an availability zone
ntThe Dashboard page shows three availability zones for HP Cloud computing, all listed as US West.
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ntClick an Activate Now button. You are redirected to an Account page.
Create a payment method
ntCreate a payment method.
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ntYou can get to the console without handing over your credit card details, but you can’t use the services.
Activate
ntOnce your details have been verified, you are good to go.
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ntClick an Activate Now button and the Compute page appears.
Availability zone
ntIf you are only starting one machine, you only need one Availability Zone.
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ntMultiple availability zones are used to stop an outage bringing down a cluster of servers.
Available images
ntHP Cloud provides many ready-rolled images. The operating systems include CentOS, Fedora and Ubuntu.
Creating keys
ntUse the Key Pairs page to create a new public key and private key.
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ntHP, like AWS, uses uses public key cryptography to secure access to new VMs.
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ntThe HP Cloud instance builder adds your public key to each new machine.
Copy your private key
ntWhen you click the Create Key button, the key’s fingerprint and private key appear.
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nt 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
ntCreate a new HP Cloud instance. The first row in your Running Instances table appears.
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ntAfter a minute or two, the Build(spawning) message in the status column changes to Active.
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ntYou 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
ntEach instance in the Running Instances table has an identification number, such as 623153.
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ntThis number is a link that takes you to the Server Details page.
Destroying an image
ntWhen you are finished with your new instance, destroy it (you can easily make another).
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ntUse the Terminate button on the Server Details page.
Log out
ntWhen you finish your HP Cloud session, clean up and log out.
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ntDon’t rely on your computer’s screen lock to keep others from playing on your console.
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