The CHPC Cloud System is a CentOS-based cloud computing infrastructure powered by Openstack and open source storage software Ceph. Openstack provide services like server virtualization, block & object storage systems, software defined networking, an image repository, a web based dashboard and authentication.You can read more about Openstack and its various projects.

The Centre for high performance Computing (CHPC) hosts an OpenStack cloud with more than 2592 CPU cores and over 4.4PB of storage, offering resources such as:

• Compute
• Storage
• Networking

As an OpenStack cloud end user, you can provision your own resources within the limits set by cloud administrators.

The examples in this guide show you how to perform tasks by using the following methods:

• OpenStack dashboard: Use this web-based graphical interface, code named horizon, to view, create, and manage resources.

• OpenStack command-line clients: Each core OpenStack project has a command-line client that you can use to run simple commands to view, create, and manage resources in a cloud and automate tasks by using scripts.

As a cloud end user, you can use the OpenStack dashboard to provision your own resources within the limits set by administrators. You can modify the examples provided in this section to create other types and sizes of server instances.

Access this link https://openstack.chpc.ac.za in your browser and login using the credentials provided.

Projects are organizational units in the cloud and are also known as tenants or accounts. Each user is a member of one or more projects. Within a project, a user creates and manages instances.

From the Project tab, you can view and manage the resources in a selected project, including instances and images. You can select the project from the drop-down menu at the top left. If the cloud supports multi-domain model, you can also select the domain from this menu.