Help:Cloud VPS project
Overview
This page describes what a Cloud VPS project is, how to find existing projects, and how to request and manage new Cloud VPS projects
About Cloud VPS projects
A Cloud VPS project is the basic unit of organization in the Cloud VPS OpenStack environment. The use of the term "project" comes from the upstream documentation of OpenStack.
A Cloud VPS project is:
- a group of zero or more users
- the owner of a 'quota' for the maximum amount of CPU, RAM, and disk storage that can be used to create virtual machine instances
- the owner of virtual machine instances
- the owner of other configuration related to virtual machine instances such as sudo rules, Puppet configuration, and DNS entries.
Find existing Cloud VPS projects
A list of all Cloud VPS projects is available at toolforge:openstack-browser/project/.
Request a new Cloud VPS project
Before you request a new Cloud VPS project, check which service is right for you. Depending on your workflow and available resources, Toolforge or data services may be a better choice.
When you are ready to request a Cloud VPS Project see instructions at the #Cloud-VPS (Project-requests) Phabricator project.
Your Cloud VPS project will be reviewed by Cloud Services administrators.
Reviews of Cloud VPS Project requests
The majority of project requests are approved, but there are some things which will cause further discussion:
- Intentionally limiting membership to a closed group.
- There are valid reasons for a project to limit participants (sensitive data stored/transmitted, infrastructure for larger initiatives, etc). Because we prefer to dedicate resources to inclusive projects, projects that limit membership will require additional scrutiny.
- "Umbrella" projects with a broad scope, such as all the work to be done by an engineering team or a large problem space.
- "Umbrella" projects with broad scopes are difficult to track over time because of organizational changes and lack of continuity in ownership.
- "Laptop in the cloud" projects for a single individual to use as a personal development machine
- Projects for use by single individuals raise a problem of fairness and inclusivity. The Cloud VPS environment does not have the resources[1] to accommodate these projects. The Hardware donation program or another Wikimedia grant program may provide an alternative for some individuals.
- Projects intended to build content wikis
- These are generally not in scope for Cloud VPS, but there may be exceptions such as the Beta Cluster where the content is a necessary side effect of testing at scale.
- Projects needing larger than the default quota.
- The default quota for a new project allows up to 8 instances. New Cloud VPS projects that require more than this will need further discussion. The Cloud VPS environment has limited resources, and these must be distributed fairly between users. See Help:Cloud_VPS_Instances#Increase_quotas_for_projects
- "Emergency" requests are very unlikely to be granted without the normal review process.
- Cloud VPS administrators do not accommodate emergency requests.
Managing a Cloud VPS project
We manage Cloud VPS projects using the web interface at https://horizon.wikimedia.org/. Read the Horizon FAQ to learn more.
Communication and support
Support and administration of the WMCS resources is provided by the Wikimedia Foundation Cloud Services team and Wikimedia Movement volunteers. Please reach out with questions and join the conversation:
- Chat in real time in the IRC channel #wikimedia-cloud connect, the bridged Telegram group, or the bridged Mattermost channel
- Discuss via email after you subscribed to the cloud@ mailing list