Access to the Nirin Cloud is available to new and existing projects on request. Projects requesting access must provide some basic information about their proposed Nirin Cloud usage (see Appendix A); they must also nominate at least one project member who will be given access to the Nirin Cloud dashboard to manage the project's cloud resources.
A Nirin - Quick Start Guide is available, which covers the basics - logging into the dashboard, creating instances and volumes, and a number of other basic tasks; it also includes links to other Nirin Cloud user documentation.
Nirin Cloud is built using OpenStack - a wide range of external sources are available covering the usage of OpenStack-based cloud services, many of which will be applicable to Nirin Cloud usage.
Note: Nirin Cloud is primarily focused on Infrastructure as a Service - Nirin Cloud resources are compute/storage/network infrastructure that projects build services on top of. This means that the NCI Cloud Team does not have any involvement with or responsibility for the services that projects build with their Nirin Cloud resources. In particular, the NCI Cloud Team does not have admin access to instances, and cannot perform system management tasks of any kind for projects.
Projects requesting access to the Nirin Cloud must submit a written proposal. This proposal will undergo a technical assessment by the NCI Cloud Team, as well as an estimate of the usage costs the proposal will incur; both of these will be discussed with the project before proceeding. The technical assessment may recommend revisions to the proposal, and in some cases may recommend against approval on technical grounds. Assuming there are no technical issues and the estimated costs are acceptable the proposal will then go for final approval by NCI management.
Proposals should include a brief description of the project, a brief explanation of what the project intends to achieve with their proposed Nirin Cloud resources, a summary of the resource requirements, usage and lifecycle, and a more detailed quantified outline of the proposed resources. A template for this is provided below.
The completed proposal should be submitted via the NCI Helpdesk. From there it will be passed to the NCI Cloud Team for assessment; once the assessment process is complete and the proposal has been approved, the NCI Cloud Team will provision the project on the Nirin Cloud.
The initial provisioning of a project on the Nirin Cloud involves the following, done by the NCI Cloud Team once approval is granted:
Note: The initial provisioning does not involve creating any other resources; in particular, no instances are created: the project is responsible for creating and managing all their Nirin Cloud resources. However, the NCI Cloud Team will liase with newly provisioned projects during this provisioning period to ensure that the project is able to get past any initial hurdles.
Projects with Nirin Cloud access will typically be long-lived, and can expect to have resources and data that persist throughout the lifetime of the project. At the end of that time the project is responsible for appropriately disposing of these resources - typically this would involve archiving project data where appropriate, and then deleting instances, volumes and any other project resources. The NCI Cloud Team will not delete project resources while the project is still active.
For projects which have ended without disposing of their Nirin Cloud resources, the NCI Cloud Team will make reasonable efforts to contact the project in order to determine the appropriate course of action. Resources belonging to defunct projects which have not been disposed of appropriately after one quarter may be deleted at the discretion of NCI management.
As of 2024q1 Nirin Cloud usage is not charged for. However, NCI is in the process of integrating Nirin Cloud usage accounting into the general usage accounting system; once this integration is complete Nirin Cloud usage will be accounted against projects in a similar way to Gadi usage, and projects with Nirin Cloud access will need to incorporate these usage costs into their project planning. |
Nirin Cloud resources have an hourly charging rate in SU associated with them; this accrues over the lifetime of the resource. For example, an instance using the c3.2c4m10d flavour (with an hourly rate of 2.5 SU/hour 1): if the instance is created and then deleted after five hours, the total usage cost is five times the hourly cost or 7.5SU.
Not all Nirin Cloud resources are charged for - at present the list of resources which have a charging rate defined are:
Note: The list of resources which are charged for will change over time, as will the rates charged; however, changes will only take effect at the start of the next quarter, and will be communicated beforehand.
Footnotes
1: This hourly rate is indicative, and may change - see the Nirin Flavors and Charge Rates for more information.
A brief (one paragraph) description of the project.
A brief (one paragraph) summary of what the project intends to achieve with their Nirin Cloud resources.
A brief (one paragraph) summary of what Nirin Cloud resources the proposal requires and the planned usage of those resources.
A brief (one paragraph) summary of the project's expected usage patterns over the lifetime of the project.
A brief (one paragraph) summary of the expected project lifetime, and planned disposition of project resources and data once it reaches end-of-life.
Please fill out this table with the necessary information.
Note: elements which are not needed should be noted as such (i.e. enter "Not needed" or "Not applicable").
| Project Code | The NCI project code (eg ab12) |
|---|---|
| Scheme Name1 | The scheme providing the allocation required for this proposal |
| Lead PI NCI Username | The NCI username of the lead PI (eg usr234) |
| Project Members needing Dashboard access2 | A list of project members who will be responsible for managing the project's cloud resources |
| Total CPU and RAM allocation required | The total count of CPU cores and total GB of RAM across all instances |
| Summary of Instances | A list of instances proposed, including their flavour and brief description of planned usage |
| Number of Internet Accessible IP addresses | The number of externally accessible IP addresses (floating IPs) the project requires |
| Summary of Externally Accessible Services | A list of services which the project intends to make externally accessible |
| Total Persistent Storage required | The total amount of persistent cloud storage required across all volumes |
| Summary of Volumes | A list of volumes, and a brief description of planned usage |
| NCI /g/data Filesystems Access3 | A list of /g/data directories which the project needs access to from within the Nirin Cloud |
Footnotes
1: Where the project's current allocation does not cover the estimated usage cost for the proposal, scheme management may need to indicate approval for the proposal.
2: Dashboard/CLI access is separate from actually using project resources (e.g. accessing services, logging into instances via ssh) - projects are solely responsible for managing access to their instances and services.
3: /g/data access is managed by the NCI Storage team - see the NFS Export Policy for global file-systems to Nirin page for more details.
Nirin Cloud Test Project is a test project which exists to provide example data for use in Nirin Cloud documentation.
The Nirin Cloud Test Project intends to demonstrate the use of a range of aspects of the Nirin Cloud, including processes for requesting access.
In order to demonstrate the basics of using the Nirin Cloud, the project plans to create one example of all the basic Nirin Cloud resources:
Usage is expected to be very brief. We anticipate resources being and recreated multiple times over a day or two, during which screenshots and various other details will be recorded. Once this work is complete the project will be closed.
We anticipate that the project lifetime will be less than one full quarter. The project does not anticipate creating any data on cloud storage that will need special handling - all cloud resources associated with the project will be deleted when the project closes.
Please fill out this table with the necessary information.
Note: elements which are not needed should be noted as such (i.e. enter "Not needed" or "Not applicable").
| Project Code | nctp01 |
|---|---|
| Scheme Name1 | NCI Internal - Cloud |
| Lead PI NCI Username | usr234 |
| Project Members needing Dashboard access2 | usr234 |
| Total CPU and RAM allocation required | 1 core, 2GB |
| Summary of Instances | test-instance-01: c3.1c2m10d flavour, to demonstrate instance usage |
| Number of Internet Accessible IP addresses | 1 externally accessible address |
| Summary of Externally Accessible Services | ssh: used to demonstrate SSH login to the test instance |
| Total Persistent Storage required | 1GB |
| Summary of Volumes | test-volume-01: 1GB Nirin2_General volume to demonstrate volume usage |
| NCI /g/data Filesystems Access3 | No gdata access required |
Usage Costs: Nirin Flavors and Charge Rates
/g/data Filesystem Access: NFS Export Policy for global file-systems to Nirin
Quick Start Guide: Nirin - Quick Start Guide
For more details, please send an email to help@nci.org.au with details of your requirements.