Help:Cloud Services introduction
Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS) is a flexible computing ecosystem built on OpenStack, GridEngine, and Kubernetes. The project empowers technical contribution to the Wikimedia software world. The products and resources of the WMCS project are available for use by anyone connected with the Wikimedia movement. Support and administration of the WMCS resources is provided by a Wikimedia Foundation team and Wikimedia movement volunteers.
History
A community consultation on branding has now been closed after an open call for participation and discussion.
Working titles are now in use across some documentation. The generic compute/'Labs' environment for running your own virtual instances is being referred to now as "VPS" and Tool Labs/Tools which is the PaaS environment is now being referred to as "ToolForge".
From 2011 until early 2017, WMCS was known as "Wikimedia Labs".
The term 'Labs' became overloaded and often required clarification about what component of the ecosystem was being referred to. The former Wikimedia Foundation Labs team and the Tool Labs Support team have joined forces as the Wikimedia Cloud Services team and are launching a campaign to improve the language and branding surrounding products and services offered.
WMCS Products
- Virtual Private Servers (VPS) for users to develop and maintain projects that help Wikimedia.
- ToolForge Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment for running bots, webservices, scheduled jobs, and doing analysis
- Data Services (DaaS) offerings that include a real-time and sanitized production database replica, and NFS access to Wikimedia Dumps
What Product Should I Use
VPS => Wikimedia VPS
If you need to run full virtual instances and are willing to administer them on your own we can provide quota to do so.
PaaS => ToolForge
If you need to run a specific webservice, scheduled job, or perform analysis but do not want to or are not able to manage a full virtual environment this is the best place.
DaaS => Data Services
We provide replicas of the production databases and other data for analysis and experimentation. DaaS resources are available from both the VPS and the PaaS environments, though some of them may need to be requested for a specific VPS Project. In addition, the Quarry service provides database access via a web interface without project setup.
Discovery
- Read our glossary of terminology
- Browse existing VPS projects using OpenStack Browser.
- Project administration is done through the OpenStack dashboard known as Horizon.
- ToolForge (Tools) has a homepage and a directory of Tools
Joining and Participating
Labs Account Holders are governed by the Labs terms of use and the Rules. The agreement to disclosure of personally identifiable information covers End-Users.
We are on IRC
Terms of Use
- WMCS resources are subject to the Wikimedia Labs Terms of Use.
- Tools must be open source software licensed under an OSI approved license.
- Tools must not collect, store, or share private data or personally identifiable information, such as user names, passwords, or IP addresses, except when complying with the conditions listed in the Wikimedia Labs Terms of Use.
