Entitlements in bwCloud-OS

⚠️ Please Note: The entitlement model is currently in the process of restructuring, and the information on this page may be outdated.

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 bwCloud-OS is used and funded.

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Access Control via Entitlements

Entitlements determine whether a user is allowed to access bwCloud-OS at all. This decision is made exclusively by the user's home institution.

• Since 01.10.2019, the following rule applies:

  No entitlement from the home institution = No access to bwCloud(-OS)

  The bwCloud-OS team has no authority to grant access without an official entitlement.

Faster, Automated Registration

• The entitlement are automatically evaluated during registration.
• Users receive immediate access once their entitlement is confirmed — no manual activation required.
• This streamlines onboarding and allows users to begin using bwCloud-OS within minutes.

Current Entitlement Types

There are currently two types of entitlements:

• bwCloud-Basic Aimed at students and beginner users, offering limited, free resources.
• bwCloud-Extended Intended for advanced or long-term users who require more resources. This entitlement allows full access to available instance flavors and will incur costs in the future.

📌 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.
  • Intended as a trial access, mainly for students.
  • These instances are free of charge and best suited for:
    • temporary servers
    • software repositories
• bwCloud-Extended
  • Grants access to all available flavors.
  • Users receive significantly higher quotas.
  • VMs can run indefinitely (until deleted by the user).
  • This entitlement is meant for
    • operational workloads
    • research
    • teaching infrastructure
  • Usage will be billed in the future via institutional cost models.

VM Lifespan and Cleanup Policy

To ensure availability and efficient use of resources:

• bwCloud-Basic
  • Not intended for permanently running services.
  • VMs may be regularly deleted by the bwCloud team to:
    • Clean up unused instances
    • Free capacity for new users
  • Expect VMs to be temporary and 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.
• bwCloud-Basic usage remains free of charge, as it is funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK).