RCSIS User Documentation

The Research Computing Infrastructure Cloud is an OpenStack-based private cloud hosted by the Research Computing Services at the University of Cambridge. in the West Cambridge Data Centre.

It was first deployed in September 2016 and underwent a period of testing and upgrades through two successive OpenStack versions to a long-term support release of the OpenStack cloud management software, and is now available for use by research groups within the University of Cambridge for hosting virtual compute infrastructure, data storage and software in aid of their research work.

RCSIS Background:

• 1. Agenda
  • 1.1. What you are going to learn
  • 1.2. Main goal
  • 1.3. Contents
• 2. General concepts
  • 2.1. Traditional Datacenter
  • 2.2. From the Traditional Datacenter to Cloud
  • 2.3. How to “think cloud”
• 3. Our Services
  • 3.1. How our OpenStack is currently structured
  • 3.2. What is OpenStack?
• 4. The team behind this
• 5. The Shared Responsibility Security Model
• 6. RCSIS Service Level Agreement
  • 6.1. Definitions
  • 6.2. Data Retention
  • 6.3. Service Availability
  • 6.4. Service Availability Level Goals
  • 6.5. RCSIS Customer Responsibilities
  • 6.6. Software Licencing
  • 6.7. Service Security and Security Response
  • 6.8. Service Maintenance
  • 6.9. Exceptional Maintenance and Unplanned Disruptions
  • 6.10. Limitations
  • 6.11. SLA Violations
  • 6.12. Support Policy
• 7. Backups
  • 7.1. Backups of the cloud
  • 7.2. Backups in the cloud
  • 7.3. Backing up with “openstack volume backup”

RCSIS User Guide

• 1. Exploring the web interface
  • 1.1. What is Horizon ?
  • 1.2. Log in to the dashboard
  • 1.3. Getting started
  • 1.4. Lab 1 - Getting started
• 2. Networking service: OpenStack Neutron
  • 2.1. What is Neutron?
  • 2.2. Networking use cases
  • 2.3. Create your first network topology
  • 2.4. Registration of DNS Names
  • 2.5. Lab 2 - Creation of a network and subnet
• 3. Computing service: OpenStack Nova
  • 3.1. What is Nova?
  • 3.2. Deploying your first service
  • 3.3. Lab 3 - Deploying a service
• 4. Storage services: OpenStack Cinder and Swift
  • 4.1. Basic concepts
  • 4.2. What is Cinder?
  • 4.3. What is Swift
  • 4.4. Storage use cases
  • 4.5. Add persistence to your services
  • 4.6. Lab 4 - Add persistence to your services
• 5. Orchestration Service: OpenStack Heat
  • 5.1. Cloud Orchestration
  • 5.2. What is Heat?
  • 5.3. Why could Heat do for you?
  • 5.4. Orchestrate your service
  • 5.5. Lab 5 - Orchestrate your service
• 6. Links

RCSIS Labs

• Training modules
  • LAB [001] Getting started
  • LAB [002] Create you first network topology
  • LAB [003] Deploying your first service
  • LAB [004] Add persistence to your services
  • LAB [005] Orchestrate your service

Indices and tables

• Index
• Module Index
• Search Page