1 instance, multiple VMs

[dya]

I understand that adding nodes to an instance allows you to have multiple VMs on a single instance. However, what kind of use cases would benefit from this?
Specifically, I'd like to know if there are specific scenarios where someone would choose to have multiple VMs on a single instance because they want to achieve a particular outcome.

[martezr]

Multiple virtual machines associated with an instance would commonly be used in clustered scenarios such as a group of web servers that would be scaled out and in to meet traffic demand. An example would be initially creating an instance with three (3) virtual machines but then adding another three (3) during a certain time of the year and then deleting those additional three (3) virtual machines after that time of the year has passed. The use case for this feature is expanded if HPE Morpheus Enterprise is used instead of HPE VM Essentials as the Morpheus Enterprise solution supports what is essentially autoscaling rules to dynamically scale the virtual machines associated with the instance.

[dya]

Thank you.

I believe autoscaling isn't available in “Essentials,” so I was wondering why “Add node” appears on the instance.

I don't see any purpose for displaying “Add node” on the instance, so to avoid confusing users, I'd like unnecessary items not to be shown.

[martezr]

The "Add Node" option exists on the instance in VM Essentials to support a user manually scaling the instance by adding or removing virtual machines. There's certainly room to debate whether manual scaling as a useful feature but given that VM Essentials supports scaling the instance via a REST API call that means that an external system that's integrated with a 3rd party monitoring solution or time-based scheduler could provide a robust autoscaling solution that takes advantage of the "manual" scaling option in VM Essentials.