Private IaaS Cloud

BACKGROUND

In the Summer of 2012, CSG built and ran a DoC Infrastructure-as-a-service private cloud, allowing all DoC users to specify and create Virtual Machines via a convenient web interface, automatically installing OSes on them and deploying them in a matter of minutes.  Our first-generation private cloud service was based on Apache Cloudstack. In the Summer of 2019, we changed service delivery to oVirt and ManageIQ platforms for a second-generation DoC private cloud.

The web interface for the second generation DoC Private Cloud is now available for departmental users via cloud.doc.ic.ac.uk. Please use your normal college user-name and password for authentication. Please note that the web interface is only accessible from within the college network. If you are outside the college network, use VPN or SSH tunnelling to access the resource.

  • All cloud VMs that you create have an FQDN of the form cloud-vm-XX-NN.doc.ic.ac.uk, and an IP address of the form 146.169.XX.NN.
  • if you have a valid reason for any ports to be accessible externally, please email doc-help@imperial.ac.uk, stating the name, FQDN or IP address of the cloud VM and the reason.
  • The vast majority of our cloud VMs will run some form of Linux.

Despite the Department investing a considerable amount of money in the Private Cloud, it still has finite limits, especially virtualization hosts to run all your cloud VMs and storage to store their disk images on.  As a result, it is possible to overload the cloud and make it run slowly for everybody (please try not to!).

A Cloud user mailing list is available (doc-cloud-users@imperial.ac.uk), to subscribe please email us (doc-help@imperial.ac.uk).

DOCUMENTATION

Please visit this web page for instructons and documentation about how to use the Doc Cloud service.

OFF-SITE NETWORK ACCESS

If you need to run a service that is directly accessible outside of the DoC network, please contact CSG explaining why you need such access. Don't forget to include the name, FQDN or IP address of the cloud VM in your e-mail.

DISCUSSION LIST FOR DOC CLOUD USERS

We have setup a mailman-based mailing list for interested DoC private cloud users to discuss cloud related things on, spread best practice etc. CSG will also use this list to improve communication about the DoC cloud, for example to announce current problems with, or upcoming upgrades to, the DoC cloud. We'd like to invite you to subscribe to this mailing list if you're interested in doing so. To subscribe, please go to: https://mailman.ic.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/doc-cloud-users

There is also an email-based interface for users (not administrators) of your list; you can get info about using it by sending a message with just the word `help' as subject or in the body, to:

MORE DETAILS ON THE DOC PRIVATE CLOUD

The cloud uses the following software:

The service is hosted on departmental hardware:

  • The virtualisation hosts - which run the virtual machines - feature Intel Xeon and AMD Epyc CPUs with between 128GB and 512GB of RAM.

  • The storage layer - where the virtual disk images live - is provided by iSCSI, Gluster and NFS storage servers.