Functions

ECS Types and Specifications

An ECS is a basic computing unit that consists of vCPUs, memory, OS, and EVS disks.

After creating an ECS, you can use it like using your local computer or physical server, ensuring secure, reliable, and efficient computing. ECSs support self-service creation, modification, and operation. You can create an ECS by specifying its vCPUs, memory, OS, and login authentication. After the ECS is created, you can modify its specifications as required. This ensures a reliable, secure, efficient computing environment.

ECS Billing Modes

There are yearly/monthly, pay-per-use, and spot pricing billing modes. Each one has different advantages and disadvantages.

For more information, see Billing Modes.

ECS Purchase

ECSs are more cost-effective than physical servers. Within minutes, you can obtain elastic, scalable resources from the public cloud. You can purchase ECSs in the following ways:

• Quick config

  The quick config mode provides basic, cost-effective, and high-performance instance specifications for you to choose from. You can specify the billing mode, region, image, public network access, and purchase details to quickly purchase ECSs.

• Custom config

  You can flexibly specify parameters for ECSs based on your service scenarios.

For more information, see Introducing ECS Purchase Options.

Specification Selection

You can select ECS specifications in different ways based on service requirements.

• By type

  This is suitable if you are familiar with CPU architectures, vCPUs, memory, and instance families and generations, and want to select specifications based on specific configuration requirements.

• By scenario

  This is suitable if you have specific service requirements and want to select specifications based on service scenarios and volumes.

For more information, see Selecting ECS Specifications.

Hyper-Threading

When purchasing an x86 ECS, you can enable or disable hyper-threading by specifying CPU options. If you do not specify it, hyper-threading is enabled by default.

For more information, see Enabling or Disabling Hyper-Threading.

Scheduled Instance Deletion

You can set a scheduled deletion time when purchasing a pay-per-use ECS. The system will delete the ECS at the specified time.

Deleted ECSs cannot be recovered. You are advised to back up data before deleting ECSs.

For more information, see Purchasing an ECS in Custom Config Mode.

Auto Launch Groups

Auto Launch Groups consist of launch templates and auto launch groups.

• A launch template contains the information required to quickly launch an ECS, for example, the specifications, network settings, and a key pair (excluding the password). You can launch an ECS quickly without specifying the required parameters every time.

  For more information, see Launch Templates Overview.

• An auto launch group automatically provisions ECSs across different AZs based on your launch template configurations. The group supports different ECS types and billing modes to meet capacity targets at the lowest price possible.

  For more information, see Auto Launch Groups Overview.

Auto launch groups are applicable to scenarios such as image rendering, stateless web services, DNA sequencing, offline analysis, function computing, batch computing, sample analysis, CI/CD, and test.

Sequential ECS Names

When purchasing multiple ECSs, you can arrange ECS names in sequential order in either of the following ways:

• Automatic naming: The system automatically numbers ECSs with a four-digit suffix in ascending order.
• Custom naming: You can create a custom naming rule using the format "name_prefix[begin_number,bits]name_suffix". The system will name the ECSs based on the rule you specify.

For more information, see How Can I Set Sequential ECS Names When Creating Multiple ECSs?

Password Reset

For more information, see Overview of Password Reset.

ECS Login

After an ECS is created, you can log in to the ECS and deploy websites or applications on it. Before logging in to an ECS, you need to establish a connection between the local device and the ECS. The connection method depends on the ECS OS and the tool used by the local device.

• For more information about how to log in to a Windows ECS, see Login Overview (Windows).
• For more information about how to log in to a Linux ECS, see Login Overview (Linux).

Data Disk Initialization

After you attach a new data disk to a server, you must initialize the disk including creating partitions, creating file systems, and mounting the partitions before you can use the disk.

For more information, see Initializing Data Disks.

Specification Modification

If the ECS specifications cannot meet service requirements, you can modify the specifications by upgrading the vCPUs and memory.

For more information, see Modifying ECS Specifications.

OS Change

Changing an ECS OS will change the system disk attached to the ECS. After the change, the system disk ID of the ECS will be changed, and the original system disk will be deleted.

The cloud platform supports changing between image types (public images, private images, and shared images) and between OSs. You can change your OS by changing your ECS image.

For more information, see Changing the OS.

OS Reinstallation

If the OS of an ECS fails to start or requires optimization, reinstall the OS.

For more information, see Reinstalling the OS.

Recycle Bin

Recycle bin is a resource recovery feature that enables you to restore ECSs that have been deleted. When using recycle bin, if you delete pay-per-use ECSs or unsubscribe from unexpired yearly/monthly ECSs, they can be retained in the recycle bin for a time period that you specify before being permanently deleted. This can help protect your ECSs from accidental deletions.

For more information, see Recycle Bin Overview.

Image Creation

You can install software and deploy application environments as needed on an ECS and then use the ECS to create a private image. When you use this image to create new ECSs, all the software and environments will be applied to these ECSs automatically. This will avoid repeated ECS configurations and improve environment setup efficiency.

You can create a system disk image, data disk image, or full-ECS image from an existing ECS or import such an image or ISO image. This section describes how to create a private image using different methods.

For more information, see Creating an Image.

Disk Management

Elastic Volume Service (EVS) offers scalable block storage for ECSs. With high reliability, high performance, and rich specifications, EVS disks can be used for distributed file systems, development and test environments, data warehouses, and high-performance computing (HPC) scenarios to meet diverse service requirements.

You can add and attach disks to ECSs, and expand disk capacity when necessary.

For more information, see Disk Overview.

Elastic Network Interface Management

An elastic network interface (referred to as a network interface in this documentation) is a virtual network card. You can create and configure network interfaces and attach them to your cloud servers (such as ECSs and BMSs) to obtain flexible and highly available network configurations.

For more information, see Network Interface Overview.

EIP Management

Elastic IP (EIP) provides independent public IP addresses and bandwidth for Internet access. EIPs can be bound to or unbound from ECSs, BMSs, NAT gateways, virtual IP addresses, and load balancers. Various billing modes are provided to meet different service requirements.

You can bind, unbind, or change EIPs for ECSs. If the bandwidth of an EIP does not meet your service requirements, you can adjust the bandwidth.

For more information, see EIP Overview.

Security Group Management

A security group is a collection of access control rules for ECSs that have the same security protection requirements and that are mutually trusted. After a security group is created, you can create various access rules for the security group, these rules will apply to all ECSs added to this security group.

When creating an ECS, you must associate it with a security group. If no security group has been created yet, a default security group will be automatically created and associated with the ECS. You can also create a security group based on service requirements and associate it with the ECS. An ECS can be associated with multiple security groups, and traffic to and from the ECS is matched by priority in descending order.

For more information, see Security Group Overview.

Host Security

Host Security Service (HSS) is designed to protect server workloads in hybrid clouds and multi-cloud data centers. It integrates server security, container security, and web tamper protection capabilities. HSS protects your system integrity, enhances application security, monitors user operations, and detects intrusions.

For more information, see HSS.

ECS Data Backup

Cloud Backup and Recovery (CBR) enables you to back up cloud servers and disks with ease. In case of a virus attack, accidental deletion, or software or hardware fault, you can restore data to any point in the past when the data was backed up.

For more information, see CBR Overview.

Event Management

Huawei Cloud can predict and proactively prevent hardware or software faults of hosts accommodating ECSs.

If host failures cannot be avoided, the system will generate and report events for affected ECSs to minimize impacts on instance unavailability or performance deterioration. These events include instance redeployment and local disk replacement. The system does not frequently report events.

For more information, see Event Overview.

OS Dump

If your ECS OS becomes faulty, a system crash or blue screen of death (BSOD) may occur. In this case, you can configure OS dump to enable the memory data to be stored in a file. This helps fault locating and analysis.

For more information, see Configuring OS Dump.

Self-Service O&M

To simplify ECS O&M operations, reduce the O&M impact on services, and improve O&M efficiency, ECS provides functions such as submitting commands without login, creating scheduled tasks, configuring DNS servers in just one click, and in-depth diagnosis.

For more information, see Self-Service O&M.

Tag Management

A tag identifies an ECS. Adding tags to an ECS facilitates ECS identification and management.

For more information, see Tag Management Overview.

Quota Adjustment

Quotas can limit the number or amount of resources available to users, such as the maximum number of ECS or EVS disks that can be created.

If the existing resource quota cannot meet your service requirements, you can apply for a higher quota.

For more information, see Quota Adjustment.

ECS Monitoring

Monitoring is key for ensuring ECS performance, reliability, and availability. Using monitored data, you can determine ECS resource utilization. The cloud platform provides Cloud Eye to help you obtain the running statuses of your ECSs. You can use Cloud Eye to automatically monitor ECSs in real time and manage alarms and notifications to keep track of ECS performance metrics.

For more information, see Monitoring ECSs.

Traces

Cloud Trace Service (CTS) records operations on cloud resources in your account. You can use the logs to perform security analysis, track resource changes, audit compliance, and locate faults. After you enable CTS, CTS starts to record operations on your ECSs. You can check the records generated over the last seven days on the CTS console.

For more information, see Viewing Traces.

APIs

APIs for ECS include native OpenStack APIs and ECS APIs. ECS APIs are recommended.

For more information, see API Overview.

SDKs

With ECS SDKs, you can call ECS APIs to create applications easily on Huawei Cloud.

Currently, SDKs are available in Java, Python, Go, Node.Js, .NET, PHP, and C++. You can use APIs or any of the SDKs you are familiar with.

For more information, see SDK Overview.