About the Platform

Condenser is a private cloud platform for research computing at UCL. It provides a cost-effective, private alternative to public cloud platforms. The platform is developed and maintained by the Advanced Research Computing Centre. All hardware resides in UCL facilities.

Tenancy

Access to Condenser is organized according to tenancies. Users in a tenancy are provided with access to a Kubernetes cluster. Users can deploy virtual machines and related resources with Harvester. Rancher is used to provide access to the cluster.

A tenancy is provided with a namespace to isolate their resources from neighbor tenants on the same cluster. Each tenancy is also provided with an isolated network. Resource quotas (CPU, RAM, and data storage) are applied at the tenancy level, rather than to individual users.

Sensitive data

As a platform, Condenser is not certified for the secure storage and processing of sensitive data. However, it is possible to build a secure environment on the platform. Please consult with us during onboarding, and plan to collaborate with a Research Data Engineer when planning projects with sensitive data on Condenser.