Entitlements in bwCloud-OS

⚠️ Please Note: This page is currently under development.

This page is about the entitlements for the bwCloud-OS NG. Please visit entitlements for bwCloud-SCOPE for the legacy information.

Entitlements in bwCloud-OS define who can access the platform, how many resources they may use, and under what conditions. They are issued and managed by the user’s home institution and play a central role in how the platform is used and funded.

---

Structure

An entitlement persists out of two parts, the quota flavor and optionally the eligibilities,

QUOTA_FLAVOR

bzw.

QUOTA_FLAVOR:json=ELIGIBILITY

, where QUOTA_FLAVOR must be one of the supported values from the table TODO LINK below and ELIGIBILITY is the base64-encoded JSON structure described below.

Quota flavors

The following entitlements for granting quotas are described in the table below.

List of supported quota flavors

quota flavor	Note
bwcloudos_empty	Default case. User can’t generate costs.
bwcloudos_tiny_1
bwcloudos_xtiny_1
bwcloudos_medium_1
bwcloudos_xmedium_1
bwcloudos_large_1
bwcloudos_xlarge_1
bwcloudos_custom	User can choose the quota to be requested.

Each quota flavor is associated with resources granted to projects.

Resources associated with each quota flavor

Entitlement	instances	cores	ram_gb	volumes	volumes_gb	backups	backups_gb	networks	subnets	routers	floating_ips
bwcloudos_empty	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
bwcloudos_tiny_1	1	1	1	10	100	30	300	10	10	1	0
bwcloudos_xtiny_1	2	2	2	10	100	30	300	10	10	1	0
bwcloudos_medium_1	4	4	4	20	200	60	600	10	10	1	1
bwcloudos_xmedium_1	8	8	8	20	200	60	600	10	10	1	1
bwcloudos_large_1	16	16	16	40	400	120	1200	20	20	2	2
bwcloudos_xlarge_1	32	32	32	40	400	120	1200	20	20	2	2
bwcloudos_custom	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Eligibility JSON

Optionally, the following structure for Eligibilities may be used to provide further information and define conditions for the quota flavor.

{"eligs": [{"cc_id": "COST_CENTER_ID", "first_val": "YYYY-MM-DD", "last_val": "YYYY-MM-DD", "max_bu": "INTEGER"}, {...}]}

Special Entitlements

There is also the Entitlement bwcloudos_access that is further described in Access Control via Entitlements.

Entitlement	Note
bwcloudos_access	Allows the registration for the bwCloud-OS via RegApp

Access Control via Entitlements

The entitlement bwcloudos_access determines whether a user is allowed to access bwCloud-OS at all. This decision is made exclusively by the user's home institution. The bwCloud-OS team has no authority to grant access without an official entitlement. Accessing the bwCloud-OS requires a registration in advance.

Faster, Automated Registration

Registration is streamlined through entitlements:

• Entitlement are automatically evaluated during registration.
• Users receive immediate access once their entitlement is confirmed — no manual activation required.

Current Entitlement Types

There are currently two types of entitlements:

• bwCloud-Basic Aimed at students and beginner users, offering limited resources. Typical use cases include:
  • Student coursework
  • Short-lived or experimental servers
  • Hosting simple software repositories
• bwCloud-Extended Intended for advanced or long-term users who require more resources. This entitlement is meant for:
  • Research
  • Teaching infrastructure
  • Operational workloads

📌 A user account can have both entitlements — in that case, bwCloud-Extended takes precedence.

Resource Usage and Flavor Access

Entitlements determine which flavor types (resource profiles) a user can launch:

• bwCloud-Basic
  • Only allows launching nano or tiny instances.
• bwCloud-Extended
  • Grants access to all available flavors.
  • Users receive significantly higher quotas.

VM Lifespan and Cleanup Policy

To ensure fair resource distribution and system availability, different rules apply depending on the assigned entitlement:

• bwCloud-Basic
  • VMs may be regularly deleted by the bwCloud team to:
    • Clean up unused instances
    • Free capacity for new users
  • Expect VMs to be potentially removed without notice.
• bwCloud-Extended
  • No such restrictions apply.
  • VMs are persistent and remain active until the user deletes them.

Cost Allocation and Funding Model

Entitlements also help define who is financially responsible for resource usage. To ensure sustainable operation and future hardware/software upgrades, bwCloud-OS is moving toward a cost allocation model.

• The user’s institution is responsible for:
  • Verifying users have access to funding.
  • Covering the collective costs for all users from that institution.
• bwCloud-OS will generate aggregated usage reports and invoices per institution — no individual billing.