_index.md

title: "Introduction"
date: 2021-05-18T11:22:35+02:00
draft: false
disableToc: true

{{< hint danger >}} WARNING

User projects (generated for every user) are not meant to contain production machines. If you use your personal project for long-term services, you have to ask for a GROUP project (even if you do not work in a group or you do not need any extra quotas). {{}}

{{}} Quick navigation:

• I want to request a group project.
• I want to request quota increase or additional flavor for existing project.
• I have a group project already and need to get machines up and running.
• I need technical support or security contact. {{}}

This guide aims to provide a walk-through for setting up a rudimentary virtual infrastructure in MetaCentrum Cloud. It is a good jumping-off point for most users.

MetaCentrum Cloud is the IaaS cloud on top of open-source OpenStack project. Users may configure and use cloud resources for reaching individual (scientific) goals.

The most important cloud resources are:

• virtual machines
• virtual networking (VPNs, firewalls, routers)
• private and/or public IP addresses
• storage
• cloud load balancers

The left sidebar can be used for navigation throughout the documentation. The whole guide can also be downloaded as PDFs for printing or later use.

New users should head over to the Get Access section and make sure they have an active user account and required permissions to access the service.

Beginners should start in the Quick Start a section that provides a step-by-step guide for starting the first virtual machine instance.

Advanced users should continue in the Advanced Features or Command Line Interface sections, as these are more suitable for complex use cases and exploration of available features.

Expert users with complex infrastructural or scientific use cases should contact user support and request assistance specifically for their use case.

Frequently asked questions and corresponding answers can be found in the FAQ section. Please, consult this section before contacting user support.

Bear in mind that this is not the complete documentation to OpenStack but rather a quick guide that is supposed to help you with elementary use of our infrastructure. If you need more information, please turn to the official documentation or contact user support and describe your use case.

Please visit the Network section to see how you should set up the network.