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The assignment of the entitlement is the sole responsibility of the respective home institiution. The bwCloud-OS team ''cannot add or remove entitlements'' to user accounts! In this case, please contact the central IT service department (computer center, IT service center, service center, ...) and request the assignment of the desired entitlement. | The assignment of the entitlement is the sole responsibility of the respective home institiution. The bwCloud-OS team ''cannot add or remove entitlements'' to user accounts! In this case, please contact the central IT service department (computer center, IT service center, service center, ...) and request the assignment of the desired entitlement. | ||
= | = Regions = | ||
Revision as of 21:11, 15 October 2025
| In a Nutshell |
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Entitlements
This page explains the bwIDM entitlements(bwCloud Basic, bwCloud Extended) required to use bwCloud-OS and their impact on access, resources, and operating rules.
What are "Entitlements" or "bwIDM Entitlements"?
Every member of an institution (university, college, PH, HAW, etc.) in Baden-Württemberg has a personal account to log in to and use the IT services provided by the institution. If the institution is a member of the federated identity management of Baden-Württemberg universities bwIDM, then associates of this institution can apply for further use of IT services offered by other locations.
In order that these "external" IT services "know" who the user is, the following information is provided during registration and/or usage of the external IT service and some data of the user(s) is transmitted to the IT service. The federated Identity management also ensures through the mutual trust model that the external IT service knows that the user really exists at the respective institution (validation of the account).
Within the context of the bwIDM Federation, the participating institutions have agreed on a minimum data set, which is transmitted to the external IT service. This data record includes, for example Attribute like eduPersonalPrincipalName, mail or givenName. These are so-called "standard attributes".
However, some IT services require specific information, such as whether a home institution is permitted to use a foreign IT service at all. This specific information can be added to the personal account of the user(s) through the assignment of an additional special attribute (eduPersonEntitlement).
Which Entitlements do I need to use bwCloud-OS?
To use the bwCloud-OS you need at least one of the two entitlements:
- bwCloud-Basic
- bwCloud-Extended
Accounts can also include both entitlement elements - in this case the "higher ranking" entitlement element (bwCloud-Extended) is evaluated and applied.
What is regulated with the Entitlements? Why do I need these Entitlements?
The entitlements serve several purposes. The most important points in overview:
- Entitlements answer the question of who is allowed access to bwCloud-OS and who is not based on decisions made by the users’ home institutions. The users' home institiution independently decide on the allocation of entitlements to their members - and thus ultimately who and how the bwCloud-OS should be used. On our side applies from 01.10.2019: No release by the home institution via Entitlement = No access to bwCloud-OS
- Entitlements define how many resources a user is allowed to use. The following applies: the flavor table is the basis for differentiation:
- Users who only have the bwCloud-Basic entitlement can start an instance of either "nano" or "tiny". This is a kind of "trial access" and is mainly targeted at students. Instances of this flavor are free of charge.
- Users who have the "bwCloud-Extended" entitlement will be given significantly more quotas and can therefore use all the flavors offered. The use of the bwCloud-OS will incur costs in the future.
- With the Entitlements we regulate how we handle the instances The Entitlement bwCloud-Basic is mainly addressed to students who want to use the bwCloud-OS for various purposes such as theses or as a software repository. Since there is a large number of students in Baden-Württemberg, we expect a correspondingly large number of small VMs to accumulate over time. At the same time, we assume that these VMs will most likely be forgotten and stay online even after their original purpose is no longer applicable". The bwIDM Entitlement bwCloud-Basic is not intended to run a (system) service permanently. We will therefore regularly delete all VMs started by users with entitlement bwCloud-Basic to "clean up" our systems and to give other users the chance to start an instance. The bwIDM Entitlement bwCloud-Basic is not intended for permanently running VMs. With bwCloud-Extended these restrictions do not exist. Here the following applies: the VMs run until they are independently deleted by the users.
- With the entitlements we know who can potentially pay for the virtual machines To ensure the sustainable operation of the bwCloud-OS and a regular exchange of hardware and software In order to be able to ensure this, it is necessary to charge for the services used. We therefore would like to establish a cost allocation model. With the income generated in this way, we intend to renew our hardware infrastructure regularly and adapt it to requirements. In order to be able to avoid individual invoices with the users, we are going to generate so-called collective overviews and invoices", because only the home region know their users and know who has the appropriate resources to operate VMs. With the award of the Entitlements bwCloud Extended for a user, the respective home region signals two things:
- the user has access to an account with appropriate means and that
- the home site can therefore pay the total bill for the resource consumption of all users of the site. How the costs are then allocated internally at the home site is again a matter for the respective site and can be organised individually and according to their local guidelines. Resources operated with the bwIDM Entitlement bwCloud-Basic remain free of charge: this flavor is supported by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK).
- We accelerate the registration process Through the automated evaluation of the bwIDM Entitlements in the course of the registration for the service, users receive immediate feedback when the account has been set up in the bwCloud. No manual intervention from our side is required anymore - and so everybody wins: Users enter the bwCloud-OS within minutes and we don't have to activate anyone manually anymore.
How can I find out which entitlements my account contains?
To find out which Entitlements are linked to an account, you can for example log into the "RegApp" or the bwSupportPortal. When logging into a RegApp or into the bwSupportPortal an overview of the data to be transmitted is displayed. This overview also includes the supplied Entitlements (see screenshot).
What do I do if my account has no bwCloud entitlement assigned to it?
The assignment of the entitlement is the sole responsibility of the respective home institiution. The bwCloud-OS team cannot add or remove entitlements to user accounts! In this case, please contact the central IT service department (computer center, IT service center, service center, ...) and request the assignment of the desired entitlement.
Regions
What does "region" mean in bwCloud-OS?
bwCloud-OS currently consists of four different operating sites = regions, which can be selected and administered via a common interface (dashboard or portal). Each of the four operating sites acts as an independent region. This means: running instances in the Mannheim region receive an IP address according to the configuration of the Mannheim region. The IP address is specific to Mannheim and cannot move to another region.
What is a "home region"?
Each user in the bwCloud-OS is initially assigned a home region during the setup. For users from the four operating locations this assignment is of course trivial. For users from other locations we have oriented ourselves to the network topology of the BelWü. The goal of the current assignment is the shortest possible connection of the respective location to one of our operating sites.
The following table gives a rough overview of the current distribution of users:
| User location | bwCloud-OS region = home region |
|---|---|
| Baden-Baden | Karlsruhe |
| Karlsruhe | |
| KIT | |
| Pforzheim | |
| Rastatt | |
| Offenburg | Freiburg |
| Freiburg | |
| Furtwangen | |
| Aalen | Ulm |
| Albsing | |
| Bieberach | |
| Esslingen | |
| Heidenheim | |
| Hohenheim | |
| Ulm | |
| Weingarten | |
| Gmünd | Mannheim |
| Heidelberg | |
| Heilbronn | |
| Ludwigsburg | |
| Mannheim | |
| Rottenburg | |
| Stuttgart | |
| BSZ-BW | |
| DHBW-VS | |
| Konstanz | |
| Reutlingen | |
| Tübingen | |
| Every other location |
In order to determine the home region, we evaluate the "affiliation" of the users during registration. If a user comes from a location that is not explicitly listed in the table, the Freiburg region is used as the default home region.
Where do I select the region in the dashboard?
In the left half of the top navigation bar in the dashboard you can click on a drop-down menu to display the regions. The currently selected region is marked with a tick. A click on the respective region switches there.
