> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.i3d.net/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.i3d.net/compute/flexvm.md).

# FlexVM

Create your own Private Clouds, based on scalable FlexMetal bare metal servers.

FlexVM (Flex Virtual Metal) extends the existing FlexMetal bare metal provisioning platform with a managed virtual machine layer. It enables customers to provision GPU-accelerated and general-purpose VMs on dedicated hardware through the same API, Terraform provider, and consumption model they already use for FlexMetal bare metal.

The service targets workloads that require near-bare-metal performance with the operational flexibility of virtual machines: game build pipelines, CI/CD, rendering, AI inference, and any workload where GPU/NVMe passthrough and per-tenant isolation are non-negotiable.

FlexVM is not a shared multi-tenant cloud. Each customer's VMs run on hardware exclusively allocated to them. The virtualization layer exists solely to subdivide dedicated machines into deterministic, isolated units with direct hardware access.

## Core Concepts

<table><thead><tr><th width="154">Concept</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Tenant</td><td>i3D customer identification (also known as K#)</td></tr><tr><td>Cloud</td><td>Your isolated environment. Contains nodes, VMs, and capacity. A tenant has one or more Clouds.</td></tr><tr><td>Node</td><td>A physical compute host inside your cloud. A cloud has one or more Nodes.</td></tr><tr><td>Image</td><td>An OS template used to create VMs (e.g., Ubuntu 22.04, Windows Server).</td></tr><tr><td>Instance Type</td><td>A predefined hardware profile (CPU, RAM, disk) for VMs.</td></tr><tr><td>VM</td><td>A virtual machine instance running in your cloud.</td></tr><tr><td>Command</td><td>An action you can execute on a VM (e.g., start, stop, reboot).</td></tr></tbody></table>


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