Setting up Your Servers

There are two basic steps involved in setting up your servers for ScaleXtreme cloud-based management: 

1. Link your servers: The first step is to link your public cloud provider account(s), private cloud API(s), or on-premise physical or virtual machine(s) to your ScaleXtreme account, so that ScaleXtreme can interact with them over the Internet.
2. Install the Agent: The second step is to install our software agent on individual servers to bring them under ScaleXtreme management. 

Linking your servers to ScaleXtreme

When you first login to your ScaleXtreme account, if you don't yet have servers under ScaleXtreme management, our on-boarding wizard appears. The wizard walks you through a few simple steps to help you quickly link up your servers to your ScaleXtreme account. The wizard starts with the question: "Do you have any servers?" 

If you have servers: 

Choose an option and follow the steps to link your servers to your ScaleXtreme account, as summarized here:

Servers in public cloud

If you have servers in a public cloud, such as Amazon EC2, Rackspace, or Bluelock, you can link the cloud provider account to ScaleXtreme via the Manage tab using the credentials provided to you by the cloud provider when you first created the account. To retrieve your credentials, see FInding your Amazon EC2 and Rackspace Credentials.

Servers in private cloud

If you have servers in a private cloud behind a firewall, you must first grant access to the cloud API through the firewall over http so that ScaleXtreme can interact with the private cloud over the Internet. The most secure way to do this is to restrict access to the ScaleXtreme product IP addresses only. Once access is granted, you can then link your private cloud to ScaleXtreme over http by supplying the API URL via the Manage tab.

For detailed instructions on linking public cloud provider accounts and cloud APIs to your ScaleXtreme account, see Adding Cloud Providers. For more help, please contact our support team at support@scalextreme.com.

On-premise servers

If you have on-premise servers (e.g., virtual machines on VMWare, Xen, Hyper-V or a physical machine) and those servers have Internet access, simply install the agent on the servers via the Download Agent tool (in the top navigation bar) to link them to ScaleXtreme and bring them under management. 

If you DON'T have servers: 

Choose an option and follow the steps to setup a free cloud provider account at Amazon (www.aws.amazon.com/free) where you'll be able to  launch a server, auto-install the agent via the Manage tab, and test out the full range of ScaleXtreme management features. Or, you can setup a ScaleXtreme test drive on your laptop or desktop computer by manually installing the agent with our Download Agent tool. 

Note: To use our on-boarding tool, you must first sign up for a free ScaleXtreme account at www.scalextreme.com.

Installing the ScaleXtreme agent

Once you have linked your servers to your ScaleXtreme account (as shown above), the next step is to install the ScaleXtreme software agent on the individual servers you wish to bring under management. There are two methods for installing the ScaleXtreme agent on your servers:

• Auto-Install agent: ScaleXtreme installs the agent for you on new and existing servers on public cloud provider accounts, such as Amazon, Rackspace, and Bluelock via the Manage tab. No special configuration or additional installation is required. 

• Download Agent: You manually download the agent installation package and install the agent on your servers via our Download Agent tool located in the top navigation bar.

Which agent install method do i use?

The method you use to install the agent depends on the location of your servers, as follows: 

Servers are in a public cloud

If your servers are on Amazon EC2, Rackspace, or another supported public cloud provider, you can auto-install the agent on existing servers via the Manage tab:

Note that you will need to provide credentials that enable access to each existing server (e.g., a username/password, or the private key file (.pem) associated with a key pair for that machine). Also note that ScaleXtreme auto-installs the agent on all new servers launched via the Manage tab on linked cloud provider accounts.

For step-by-step instructions on using auto-install to install the agent on existing servers via the Manage tab, see Installing the Agent on Existing Servers.

Servers are internal or in a private cloud

If your servers are internal (or running on a private cloud) and are behind a firewall, ScaleXtreme (as a service on the public Internet) cannot penetrate the firewall to auto-install the agent. In these cases, you must download and manually install the agent on your servers using our Download Agent tool, which you can access via the top navigation bar.

The Download Agent tool lets you download the specific installation package required to install the agent on your platform, including Windows (.msi), RedHat/Centos (.rpm), and Debian/Ubuntu (.deb), and is available for both 32- and 64-bit systems. It also shows you the steps you must take and specific Windows or Linux commands you must execute to install the agent on your server. 

For step-by-step instructions on using the Download Agent tool to manually install the agent on your servers, see our Download Agent article.  For more information, see our Installing the ScaleXtreme Agent documentation. Or please contact our support team at support@scalextreme.com.