# Creating Instances

The Instance catalog is where you will create new workloads targeting the HVM clusters and/or VMware vCenter Clouds available to the VM Essentials environment. The list contains only Instance Types relevant to the provisioning engines which enabled and integrated in the current appliance.

To get started, simply click the + Add button in the upper right of the Provisioning > Instances page. A modal will display allowing the catalog to be searched. Once an item is selected, it is just a matter of following the steps through the wizard.

TIP

The Instance catalog can be customized via role-based access control (RBAC) to restrict provision types only to certain Roles. It is completely customizable.

The next step will ask for a Group and Cloud to be selected. The Group is an abstract representation that can contain multiple HVM clusters or VMware vCenter integrations. Clouds can be in multiple Groups and Groups are also useful for using RBAC to restrict provisioning access and set retainment policies. The wizard continues by allowing us to choose a name for the Instance as well as an environment.

NOTE

Currently the Environment option is most useful for presenting the user with informative metadata around the Instance when coming back to it later.

Moving on, it is now time to configure the Instance. Depending on the Instance Configuration that is chosen, fields will change. This can include cloud-specific fields (i.e. target hosts for HVM clusters or datastores for VMware Clouds). There will also be options like setting an initial user account. Some of these fields are optional and will be represented as such in the wizard.

One last step before the Instance can be provisioned is the Automation step. It is here that you can select Tasks which will run during the provision process and these Tasks must complete successfully in order for the Instance status to be reported as successful. Tasks are either Bash or Powershell scripts which can be configured in the Library > Automationsection.

Now that the steps are completed for provisioning the selected Instance type, simply review your selections and complete. The Instance will automatically show up in the Instances list and its provisioning state will be represented. Depending on what was provisioned this step can range from seconds to minutes.

**Subtopics**  

- **[Converting Discovered Resources to Managed Instances](https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/api/document/sd00007520en_us/render?page=GUID-799C061A-12BC-4FD9-AD8B-FF39F2AC9A9F.html)**
