Windows instances

Windows runs great on Binero cloud! Some considerations when using a Windows based image on the platform. We outline them below.

  • As Windows generally heavy on memory usage, we recommend using a high memory flavor to run your windows instance on.

  • While Microsoft says Windows server will run on the smallest instance, for a good user experience we recommend at least 3 cores and 8 GB of memory.

  • You can expect reasonable performance at 4 cores and 12 to 16 GB of memory.

  • As Windows Server is not open source, there is a license cost associated with provisioning Windows Server. See our price list for more information.

  • While Microsoft says 32 GB is the lower limit of disk required to run Windows Server, we recommend using at least 64 GB. This does not include your actual use-case, but for the operating system itself.

Provisioning

Provisioning a Windows Server based instance works the same as in our launching an instance documentation with the exception that Windows Server does not support SSH-keys for login.

Because of this, when you’ve provisioned your instance and the status becomes ACTIVE you need to set the password by using the console, see below.

Cloud management portal

To set the initial password through the Cloud management portal

  • Press Compute and then Instances in the sidebar menu.

  • Press the instance that you recently provisioned.

  • In the top right corner, press Console (its the two angle brackets < >).

  • You will now get the visual screen output of the server. The image might be blank because the server puts it in power save mode when not used. Moving the cursor or pressing the screen to wake it up.

  • Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE

  • Press (using the cursor) the Sign in button.

  • You will get a prompt to select a password.

You are now able to login using your new password via an RDP client by using for example a floating IP.

Don’t forget that you might need to add a security group for RDP access.

OpenStack Horizon

To set the initial password through OpenStack Horizon

  • Under Project, click Compute and then Instances in the sidebar menu.

  • In the dropdown menu to the far right of the line corresponding to the instance you want to resize, press Console

  • You will now get the visual screen output of the server. The image might be blank because the server puts it in power save mode when not used. Moving the cursor or clicking on the screen will wake it up.

  • Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE

  • Press (using the cursor) the Sign in button.

  • You will get a prompt to select a password.

You are now able to login using your new password via an RDP client by using for example a floating IP.

Don’t forget that you might need to add a security group for RDP access.

Note

If you cannot see the sign-in button for any reason, restart the server.

Upgrading Windows VirtIO driver

From time to time, the underlying infrastructure behaviour will change.

This could result in bad IO-performance and even IO-stalls on windows instances with old versions of VirtIO drivers installed. Upgrading the VirtIO driver from time to time is advisable.

To perform the upgrade, follow this below process.

Important

Its advisable to backup (or at least snapshot) your volume before upgrading the VirtIO driver.

Note

The process involves a reboot, we recommend that you proceed during a maintenance window if your instance is mission critical.

  • Stop any application write IO towards the local disc. This means for example shutting down a database service. You do not need to quiesce all IO towards the disk.

  • Download the most recent VirtIO ISO driver from here.

  • Mount the ISO in Windows.

  • Run the virtio-win-gt-x64.msi installer with administrative privileges.

  • Click through it.

  • When installer completes successfully, reboot your server.

See also