CloudStack End User Agreement

Introduction

CloudStack is an Infrastructure as a Service provided to University of Calgary researchers. It allows them to quickly deploy Virtual Machines to support their research.

Researchers have a great degree of freedom in how they use CloudStack. They are solely responsible for maintaining any VMs they deploy and to ensure they backup any data and OS/Software configuration needed to recover or rebuild their VM.

CloudStack is a research environment. While the system is available 24/7, support is only available during University business hours.

Researchers are asked to follow the best practices listed below to ensure that the system remains available for the campus community.

Best Practices

1. Please stay abreast of security updates for your OS and apply them.
2. Backup your data and software configuration to non-CloudStack hosted storage (RCS does not provide backups of VMs and their data).
3. Do not run Windows (This infrastructure is not licensed to run Windows).
4. The University's "Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources and Information Policy" applies to your work using a VM. Please see University Policies and Procedures and search for "Electronic".
5. This infrastructure is only rated to handle Level 1 and Level 2 data. Please see University Legal Services and select "Information Security Classification Standard" for details.
6. You are responsible for the appropriate use of the VM by any accounts you have created.
7. You should remove/disable accounts that are no longer required.
8. All user accounts on the VM must have good passwords. See here for details on creating strong passwords.
9. CloudStack is not meant as a High Performance Computing (HPC) number cruncher. If you have HPC needs, please see "How to get an account" for details on how to apply for an account on ARC. Not sure what you need? Contact us at support@hpc.ucalgary.ca.
10. If your VM faces the outside world, please consider using appropriate security tools. Contact support@hpc.ucalgary.ca for assistance.

Important Notes

In the event of a security incident, IT Operations/Security will shut down affected VMs.

Non-critical patches/upgrades to CloudStack that are required will happen on Tuesday of each week. Running VMs should not be affected.

Non-critical patches/upgrades that require a complete restart of CloudStack will occur after 1 day email notice.

Urgent security patches to CloudStack may happen with little to no notice.

CloudStack is provided as-is, with best effort support. It is not suitable for mission critical, high availability services.

Please check back with this document as changes may occur.