Launching a Virtual Machine Instance

To launch a new instance of the Traffic Manager virtual machine, use the AWS Marketplace Web site:https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace

Use the search tool to locate the Virtual Traffic Manager package applicable to your requirements.

Click the product name to show the details screen, and then click Continue to Subscribe to create a new instance.

Alternatively, use your EC2 management tool to launch a new instance of the Traffic Manager virtual machine image you purchased. To do this, you need the AMI's ID code, which you should have received when you purchased the Traffic Manager software.

If you are using Amazon's EC2 command line management tools, you can start a new instance using the following command:

where <ami_id> is the ID of the Traffic Manager AMI you purchased and <secret> is the password you would like to use to access the Admin UI. If you do not supply a password, one is assigned randomly, as described in Entering the Admin User Password.

If you are using a graphical management tool, such as ElasticFox, select your Traffic Manager product in the list of available AMIs and create an instance by clicking the launch button. To set the password, add the following line to the user data field in the launch dialogue box:

For more details, see the documentation for the management tool you are using.

Amazon VPC users additionally require a previously created VPC with enough free private IP capacity to run the new instance. Your VPCs can be viewed (and created and deleted as appropriate) by using the VPC section of the Amazon AWS management console.

There are several configuration options that you can use to control how and where your EC2 instances are created. One option is to specify the Availability Zone in which the instance should be created.

Availability Zones are independent parts of Amazon's network, isolated from each other so that the failure of one Availability Zone does not affect the others. To improve fault tolerance, you should ensure that your EC2 instances are located in different availability zones.

Depending on the Traffic Manager product you purchased, you may also be able to select the CPU power and memory for your instance. For more details on EC2 instance parameters and how to set them, see the Amazon's EC2 documentation, or the documentation for the management tool you are using.

VPC instances are initially specified with a primary IP address within the subnet used by the VPC, and optionally, the secondary addresses on the same interface. The primary address is mandatory for management traffic. The primary address cannot be removed. Secondary addresses are used to load-balance your services and can be added as necessary.

You can add and remove secondary addresses from the AWS console or from the System > Networking page of the Traffic Manager Admin UI once the instance has launched.