Overview
Pouta is an umbrella term for cPouta and ePouta services, which are the IaaS cloud services at CSC. The cPouta cloud is the public cloud which is easily accessible via the internet. The ePouta cloud is a virtual private cloud designed to meet the security requirements of handling sensitive data. Both the cPouta and ePouta clouds run on the OpenStack cloud software. The Pouta cloud services are suitable for most kinds of computational workloads and any other supporting services these workloads might need.
The cPouta virtual machines can be connected to external IP addresses, and in this case they can be directly accessed on the internet. This helps customers run widely available services, but the customers must also take care to secure their machines. The virtual machines do not have access to any other part of CSC's infrastructure, other than what is already visible on the internet. Application data and software must be uploaded either via the internet or copied from CSC's existing shared storage services.
The ePouta cloud services are well suited for computational workloads involving sensitive data as well as extending a customer's existing IT infrastructure. The ePouta cloud services are attached to the customer's infrastructure and can be used to analyse sensitive data which may require large amounts of memory or clustered I/O performance, a remote desktop for processing sensitive data etc. The virtual machines in the ePouta cloud may optionally have network access to specific sensitive data repositories at CSC.
Accessing the Pouta services
Due to the nature of ePouta, it is not available as a self-service. Questions regarding ePouta should be directed to our helpdesk (servicedesk@csc.fi).
cPouta is self-service and you can find more information on how to get access here: Applying for cPouta access.
ePouta access is not self-service. The process is described in Applying for ePouta access.
The web interfaces of the Pouta clouds are available at following addresses:
| URL | Service name | Access |
|---|---|---|
| https://pouta.csc.fi | cPouta web interface | Accessible on the internet using Haka, Virtu, etc. |
| https://epouta.csc.fi | ePouta web interface | Accessible only from IPs provided for accessing the management interfaces of ePouta using CSC account. |
Login is available for supported account types like Haka and Virtu.
Once you have successfully logged in, you can continue with the Getting Started Guide. Pay also attention to the Security guidelines for Pouta and the Pouta accounting principles and quotas.
If you are already familiar with the basics of OpenStack, please go directly to the Configuration and Advanced sections of the Pouta documentation.
Other useful links are:
Using Pouta
- Virtual machine flavors and billing unit rates
- Launching a virtual machine with the cPouta web interface
- DNS names for virtual machines
- Connecting to your virtual machine
- Command line client tools
- Virtual machine lifecycle and saving billing units
- Orchestration with Heat
- Application development practises in Pouta
- Creating and uploading virtual machine images
- Additional services in Pouta (email, DNS)