Terms of Use Cloud4Research

1. Purpose of the service

   TU Delft Cloud4Research provides all researchers of TU Delft the opportunity to employ Cloud resources for their research computing needs. Our aim is to allow researchers access to computing and data resources in an accessible way, without the need to engage in lengthy purchasing processes or having to resort to undesirable scenarios.

2. Acceptable use

   Acceptable use of the service is all use in a scientific or educational research context for research that is (co-) owned by TU Delft. So using it for research projects that TU Delft executes, or in (Master) courses for providing resources to students is the primary intended use of the service.

   Using the service for financial gain or personal goals (such as hosting a website showing your CV) is not allowed.

3. Terms of use

   Cloud4Research services can be requested by any individual researcher at TU Delft. When approved, the researcher will be the owner of a cloud account. The researcher has full control over this cloud account, with privileges to create (extra) user accounts within this cloud account, in order to provide access to the account to any other individuals involved in the project.

   A request for Cloud4Research services must be backed by (at least) one supporter. This supporter must hold the rank of assistant professor or higher.

   A request for Cloud4Research services must include an intended end date of the service.

   A request for Cloud4Research services must include a financial code (project code or structural code) for billing (see chapter 6). Before the cloud account is provisioned, written approval by the responsible person for the financial code must be delivered.

4. Best practices

   Cloud4Research will deliver cloud accounts with default settings based on best practices both by the service deliverer (Amazon) and TU Delft. These settings are intended to guard the researcher from unintended mistakes in setting up their cloud resources.

5. Data protection

   Cloud4Research functions under a shared responsibility model: responsibility for the protection, security and compliance for your data is shared among the actual cloud provider (AWS in the current situation), the Cloud4Research support team, and the individual researcher(s) actually using the Cloud resources.

   As a baseline, Cloud4Research will typically provide a Cloud account that shields the user from storing data outside of Europe, and also providing guards (either preventing or signalling) against breaching common security best-practices.

   Cloud4Research will also act as advisors on how best to set up compliant Cloud environments. As the Cloud4Research team progresses, additional services in this field will be developed.

6. Costs

   Cloud4Research will pre-finance each cloud account with a base amount per (calendar) year. This means that if the researcher does not spend more than this base amount on cloud resources, no billing will take place and the researcher can use the service essentially “for free”.

   Costs higher than the base amount will be billed to the financial code that was provided in the initial request. This billing will be performed monthly.

   The base amount will be determined jointly in the initial meeting following a cloud request.

   Please note that tools are available to monitor costs as they develop. The Cloud4Research support team is available to help you asses your predicted costs and set up monitoring for you.