Get Started¶

Who can access ScienceCloud?¶

Access to the ScienceCloud is open for all researchers at the University of Zurich.

Access to ScienceCloud¶

To access ScienceCloud, you must first sign up by contacting Science IT. Once your access has been granted, you can log in to the ScienceCloud Web Interface.

Ask for access by contacting Science IT. We will contact you to arrange a meeting for an introduction to the system.

You need to be affiliated with a University of Zurich research group (that we call Project) and have an identity in the ITIM Identity Manager system.

Log in to the ScienceCloud Web Interface¶

Once you have access to ScienceCloud, refer to Access page for login details to the the ScienceCloud Web Interface.

What can you do with ScienceCloud and what restrictions are in place?¶

Every user belongs to a Project that normally corresponds to an existing UZH research group.
Every Project has a quota that limits the total amount of resources that can be allocated (e.g., instances, CPUs, memory, disk space, network IPs, etc).
All members of the same Project are accounted against the Project's quota.
All members of the same Project have control over each other's resources. In other words, every user can terminate someone else's instances within a given Project.
All Projects on ScienceCloud can access the same physical infrastructure underneath;
- if physical resources are exhausted, a Project will not be able to allocate new resources even if its actual usage is currently below its defined quota.

ScienceCloud Architecture¶

ScienceCloud is built on OpenStack, an open-source cloud platform that provides scalable and flexible compute, storage, and networking capabilities.

ScienceCloud Web Interface is powered by OpenStack Horizon, a user-friendly dashboard for managing cloud resources such as instances, volumes, and networks.