Availability and entitlement
The virtualisation service is highly resilient and provides a stable, managed platform 24x7x365 for hosting Windows, Linux and Unix x86 based operating systems.
Entitlement
Any school or unit may request virtual machines be created to host Microsoft Windows, Linux and Unix services. Management of the virtual machine is delegated to the school or unit making the request. People who request the service will be required to provide a cost centre for which they are authorised to approve payments so that the service can be billed for.
Charges
A charge is made for the provision of the service based on the size of the virtual machine being requested and the length of time the service is to be provided for. Charges for the different tiers of the service are outlined below. The services will be billed up-front and can be charged on increments of one month, one year or five years.
| Resource | per month cost | per year cost | 5 year cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 512MB memory size/1 vCPU | £33 | £182 | £827 |
| 1GB memory size/1 vCPU | £35 | £190 | £863 |
| 2GB memory size/1 vCPU | £37 | £205 | £933 |
| 3GB/1 vCPU | £40 | £221 | £1,003 |
| 4GB/1 vCPU | £53 | £292 | £1,325 |
| 5GB/1 vCPU | £66 | £362 | £1,647 |
| 6GB/1 vCPU | £69 | £378 | £1,717 |
| 7GB/1 vCPU | £72 | £393 | £1,788 |
| 8GB/2 vCPU | £74 | £409 | £1,859 |
| 9GB/2 vCPU | £77 | £424 | £1,929 |
| 10GB/2 vCPU | £80 | £440 | £1,999 |
| 12GB/2 vCPU | £86 | £471 | £2,140 |
| 16GB/4 vCPU | £97 | £532 | £2,422 |
| 20GB/4 vCPU | £108 | £595 | £2,704 |
| 24GB/4 vCPU | £119 | £657 | £2,986 |
| 32GB/8 vCPU | £141 | £781 | £3,549 |
| 48GB/8 vCPU | £187 | £1029 | £4,676 |
| 64GB/8 vCPU | £232 | £1,277 | £5,803 |
| 96GB/8 vCPU | £322 | £1,773 | £8,058 |
| 128GB/8 vCPU | £412 | £2,267 | £10,312 |
| 196GB/8 vCPU | £604 | £3,322 | £15,101 |
| 256GB/8 vCPU | £773 | £4,252 | £19,328 |
The costs are sized on the memory requirement of the virtual machine and CPU is not limited but the number of CPU cores provided is generally scaled based on the amount of memory required.
These charges recover the costs of the physical infrastructure (e.g server, ethernet networking, storage networking, storage), licensing, maintenance and staff time. (Internal requests from sections within Information Services will not be billed the staff time component and charges will be adjusted accordingly.) The charges do not currently include any recovery of power costs.
Resource is billed whether the virtual machine is running or not.
There is no refund of charges on cancellation of the rental once the period has started.
Additional storage and backup charges
Each virtual machine includes a 50GB slice of shared disk storage. Additional storage can be provided at £155 per terabyte per year or £775 per terabyte for five years.
Backups of virtual machines can be provided at £188 per terabyte per year or £857 per terabyte for five years. Backups are provided using a product called Veeam and nightly incremental block changes of virtual machine disks are backed up to remote storage.
Requesting the service
To request the service please see the section on requesting virtual machine.
Accessing the management console
Management of virtual machines is through the web-based management console at:
- https://kb-vc.is.ed.ac.uk/ or https://at-vc.is.ed.ac.uk/ for the new Enterprise Infrastructure supporting the virtual hosting platform (either vCentre can be used to manage services in both datacentres)
If you are not connected to the University network EdLAN, you will need to first connect to the University VPN service.