Purchasing a FlexusL Instance

Scenarios

This section describes how to purchase a FlexusL instance on the FlexusL console. You can select the region, image, instance specifications, required duration, and other parameters for your FlexusL instances based on your service requirements.

Constraints

Before purchasing a FlexusL instance, learn about the following constraints. For more details, see Constraints.
- By default, an EIP and a private IP address are assigned to a FlexusL instance. The EIP cannot be changed and will not be retained after the instance is released.
- The VPC cannot be changed after a FlexusL instance is created.
- FlexusL instances do not support IPv6 addresses.
- A FlexusL instance is actually a package of resources. Resources in the package are unsubscribed and renewed together. The EVS disk, backup vault, HSS, and data package included in the package cannot be unsubscribed separately.
- After a FlexusL instance is purchased, its region cannot be changed. Exercise caution when selecting a region.
If you need to use a private image to create a FlexusL instance, understand the constraints on private images of the FlexusL instance in case the image cannot be used after the instance is created.

Preparations

Before purchasing a FlexusL instance, sign up for a HUAWEI ID and enable Huawei Cloud services. For details, see Signing Up for a HUAWEI ID and Enabling Huawei Cloud Services.
Real-name authentication is required only when you buy or use cloud services provisioned in the Chinese mainland.
If you want to use a private image to create a FlexusL instance, create a private image on the Image Management Service (IMS) console. Private images can be used by FlexusL instances only after they are created on the IMS console. For more information, see Creating a FlexusL Instance from a Private Image or Using a Private Image to Change the OS.

Procedure

Follow the steps below to purchase a FlexusL instance.

Specify parameters for the FlexusL instance.

Parameter	Description
Region	For low network latency and quick resource access, select the region nearest to your target users. After a FlexusL instance is created, its region cannot be changed. Exercise caution when selecting a region. NOTE: By default, all FlexusL instances created by the same account in the same region are located in the same VPC. They can communicate with each other over a private network. FlexusL instances that are created by different accounts or located in different regions cannot communicate with each other over a private network. For more network information, see How Does FlexusL Instances Communicate with Each Other and with Other Cloud Resources Over a Private Network? When instances in the regions outside the Chinese mainland access instances in the Chinese mainland, there may be network latency and packet loss.
Image	FlexusL provides OS images, application images, and private images for you to select from. Before using a private image, you need to learn about the constraints on private images and create the private image. For details, see Images Supported by FlexusL Instances.
Instance Specifications	You can select instance specifications based on your service requirements. Instance specifications include the vCPU/memory, system disk, monthly data package, and peak bandwidth. NOTE: A FlexusL instance is actually a package of resources. Resources in the package are created, renewed, and unsubscribed from together. Resources in the instance specifications cannot be modified, disassociated, or unsubscribed from separately. The outbound data usage beyond the package will be billed by traffic. For details, see Instance Specifications.
(Optional) Instance Name	You can customize your instance name. If this parameter is left blank, the instance name is in the default format: image name-region-random number. In a batch creation, a hyphen followed by an incremental number is added to the end of each instance name by default.
(Optional) Associated Services	You can associate the following service resources with your FlexusL instance as needed: data disks (EVS), host security (HSS basic edition), and cloud backup vaults (CBR). NOTE: If you do not purchase a data disk during the purchase, you can purchase it afterwards on the FlexusL console. For details, see Overview. If you have not purchased HSS at this time, you can purchase and enable it on the HSS console later. For details, see Configuring HSS for a FlexusL Instance. If you have not purchased CBR at this time, you can purchase cloud server backups on the CBR console to back up the FlexusL instance. For details, see FlexusL Cloud Backup Overview.
Required Duration	The minimum duration of a purchase is one month and the maximum duration is three years. Auto renewal is supported. It means that purchased FlexusL instances will be automatically renewed before they expire. If you do not enable auto-renew during the purchase process, you can still enable it after the instances are created. Monthly: auto-renews for 1 month every time. Yearly: auto-renews for 1 year every time. For more information about auto-renewal rules, see Auto-Renewal Rules.
Quantity	Set the number of FlexusL instances to be purchased.

A FlexusL instance uses the default network configurations during the creation.

Public network: By default, a fixed elastic IP address (EIP) and VPC (vpc-default-smb) are assigned to a FlexusL instance. They cannot be changed.
Private network: By default, a fixed private IP address (172.31.x.x) and subnet (subnet-default-smb) are allocated to a FlexusL instance. They cannot be changed.
If the network segment of an existing FlexusL instance is 192.168.x.x, you need to unsubscribe from the FlexusL instance and delete the VPC and its associated subnets and security groups. Then, the network segment of the new FlexusL instance is 172.31.x.x.

Click Next: Confirm.
On the displayed page, confirm the order details, agree to the agreement, and click Submit.
Select a payment method and complete the payment.
Go back to the FlexusL console and view the purchased FlexusL instance.

If you create a FlexusL instance using an application image, it takes some time for the application preinstalled in the image is up and running. During this period of time, do not perform operations such as restarting or stopping the instance, or resetting the password. Otherwise, the installation may fail and you cannot log in to the image application dashboard. For details, see How Do I Check that an Application Image Has Been Up and Running?

Follow-Up Operations

When a FlexusL instance is being created, the initial password for logging in to the server is not set by default. Set the password first.
FlexusL instances support multiple login modes. For details, see Login Modes.
Before logging in to a FlexusL instance in non-VNC mode, ensure that the login port is opened in the security group. Otherwise, the cloud server cannot be connected. For example, to log in to a Linux instance, ensure that SSH (22) is opened. To log in to a Windows instance, ensure that RDP (3389) is opened. For details about how to configure security group rules, see Configuring Security Group Rules for a FlexusL Instance.
If you have purchased a data disk, you need to initialize the data disk before using it.
If you select an application image when creating a FlexusL instance, you can log in to the visual dashboard of the image application to quickly configure the application. For details, see Best Practices for FlexusL.
If you select an OS image when creating a FlexusL instance, you need to set up an environment by yourself. For details, see Creating an Nginx Server Using the CentOS Image or Setting Up Websites.

When you set up the environment by referring to Setting Up Websites, ensure that the OS image version used by the FlexusL instance is the same as that in the tutorial. Otherwise, the command execution may fail due to version incompatibility.