Help:Cloud Services introduction

WMCS project overview

What is Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS)?

Wikimedia Cloud Services (WMCS) provides tools, services, and support for technical collaborators who want to contribute to Wikimedia software projects. WMCS is a computing ecosystem built on OpenStack, GridEngine, and Kubernetes.

WMCS products and services are available for use by anyone connected with the Wikimedia movement. Support and administration of the WMCS resources is provided by a Wikimedia Foundation Cloud Services team and Wikimedia movement volunteers. We maintain a Glossary of related terminology.

WMCS history

From 2011 until early 2017, WMCS was known as "Wikimedia Labs." The term 'Labs' was used to refer to a number of different components, and clarification was required. In 2017, the project was reorganized. The former Wikimedia Foundation Labs team and the Tool Labs Support team joined together to create the Wikimedia Cloud Services team.

WMCS products and services

WMCS Products
Service	Product	Description	Use	Support Level
VPS	Cloud VPS	Provides collaboratively owned collections of virtual private servers where users develop and maintain software projects that help the Wikimedia movement.	Use this to run full virtual instances.	You are willing to administer instances on your own. We can provide quota to do so.
PaaS	Toolforge	Provides a shared hosting/platform as a service environment for running bots, webservices, scheduled jobs, and data analysis.	Run a specific webservice, scheduled job, or perform analysis.	You do not want to or are not able to manage a full virtual environment.
DaaS	Data Services	A collection of products including private-information-redacted copies of Wikimedia's production wiki databases and access to Wikimedia Dumps.	Create replicas of the production databases and other data for analysis and experimentation.	The Quarry service provides database access via a web interface. Some DaaS resources may need to be requested for specific VPS projects.

Renaming of products and services

We are in the process of changing the language and branding of the products and services we offer. You may find some outdated titles and names in WMCS documentation. Edits are welcome!

Participating with WMCS

Create a Wikimedia developer account

First, read the WMCS Quick start guide for information about how to create a Wikimedia developer account and to learn how to become active in Wikimedia software projects.

Review the terms and conditions

Second, make sure to review and agree to our terms and conditions. Account holders who plan to use WMCS resources and products must read and agree to the following:

Please pay close attention to the following terms for Toolforge and Cloud VPS:

Toolforge tools must be open source software licensed under an OSI approved license.
Toolforge and Cloud VPS projects 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 Cloud Services Terms of Use.

Communication and support

We communicate and provide support through several primary channels. Please reach out with questions and to join the conversation.

Communicate with us
	Connect	Best for
Phabricator Workboard	#Cloud-Services	Task tracking and bug reporting
IRC Channel	#wikimedia-cloud ^connect	General discussion and support
Mailing List	cloud@	Information about ongoing initiatives, general discussion and support
Announcement emails	cloud-announce@	Information about critical changes (auto-fwds to cloud@)
News wiki page	News	Information about major near-term plans
Blog	Clouds & Unicorns	Learning more details about some of our work

Learn more

Cloud VPS and Toolforge At-A-Glance: This page provides a basic introduction to Cloud VPS and Toolforge.
WMCS technical documentation: an in-depth index of technical information.