Research Support Handbook

Support and Contact

last modified

April 23, 2026

Contact

Wondering if SciCloud fits your research needs or questions about using SciCloud? Please contact IT for Research (ITvO).

Requesting Changes to the Server

If you need to change the server configuration (CPU, RAM or Storage), please use the Changes Form

If you no longer need the server(s), please request removal via the Delete Form.

Requesting Support

Scope and Expectations

What ITvO supports:

  • SciCloud specific issues (login/access issues, hardware performance, network issues, issues with the OpenNebula platform).

What ITvO does not support:

  • Installing, configuring and maintaining software you installed on the server.
  • Security issues with your software.
  • Out of scope: teaching programming, server admin and command-line basic; debugging your custom built application; building bespoke environments for a single project.

The ITvO team is happy to spend some time to help you to get started with a new server, but the team lacks the capacity to offer full tech-support for each software stack running on SciCloud. That said, asking questions is always free and the team might be able to point you in the right direction.

In some cases it might be possible to offer more support on a project basis to assist in developing and building your setup, but long-term maintenance of the setup will never be possible.

Support ticket

If you run into problems SciCloud with you can open a support ticket by emailing the IT Service Desk.

Use the template below to provide a clear and actionable description of your issue:

Summary
  Short description of the problem. Always mention SciCloud.

What I tried
  Exact commands run (copy/paste), scripts used, and any changes recently made.

Expected vs. actual
  What you expected to happen, and what happened instead.

Reproduction steps (minimal)
  Smallest example that fails, with steps someone else can run.

Context
  Server name
  Applications you were using

Artifacts (attach as files or paste snippets)
  Command output and full error messages
  If using containers: image name, how it was built, links to git repo's
  Screenshots

Backups

IT for Research makes daily backups with which a virtual machine can be restored on request. Backups are kept for up to 30 days.

They can also create an extra snapshot on request, for example if you are planning a major upgrade and want an easy way to revert if it fails.

Documentation Feedback

Found a typo, missing page, or confusing section? Please open an issue in the handbook’s issue tracker (see the link to the right) with:

  • Page path (for example tools/scicloud/snapshots.qmd) and what needs to change
  • A suggested fix or the exact text that confused you
  • Optional: a PR if you already made the change

If you prefer, you can also email ITvO with the same details and we will triage it.