Understanding and Using Spaces in SpinUp

The SpinUp platform allows Yale community members to easily provision and manage cloud resources. A key feature of SpinUp is the concept of "Spaces" - logical groupings of resources that help keep your cloud environment organized, secure, and aligned with your project and billing needs. This article provides an overview of Spaces and guides you through the process of creating and working with them.

What are Spaces?

A Space in SpinUp is similar to a folder that contains related cloud resources. You can create multiple Spaces to:

• Group resources used for a specific project or application

• Manage access control and security settings based on data sensitivity

• Organize resources by billing codes or department ownership

• Enable resource communication within a Space

Benefits of using Spaces

Organizing your cloud resources into well-defined Spaces provides several advantages:

• Logical organization: Group resources based on their purpose, such as an application stack or project phase.

• Security and compliance: Ensure resources with similar data sensitivity levels (e.g., moderate, high, HIPAA) are managed consistently.

• Billing allocation: Associate resources with specific billing codes or Chart of Accounts (COA) strings for chargeback.

• Simplified connectivity: Resources within a Space can communicate with each other without additional firewall configuration.

Creating a new Space

To create a new Space in SpinUp:

1. Log into SpinUp and navigate to the home page.

2. Click the "Create New Space" button.

3. Provide a name for your Space. Spaces and dashes are not allowed.

4. Select the appropriate data classification: low, moderate, or high.

5. Enter the Business Contact ID of the individual responsible for the Space for billing purposes.

6. The Department field will auto-populate based on the Business Contact ID.

7. For paid resources, enter the COA string to be billed (not required for TryIT Spaces).

8. The Space owner (person creating the Space) automatically receives superuser access to all resources in the Space.

9. For Linux resources, you can enter the SSH public key of the owner to streamline access (only needs to be done once).

10. Click "Create Space" to finish.

Provisioning resources in a Space

With your new Space created, you can now launch cloud resources in it:

1. From the SpinUp homepage, click on your Space's name to enter its management page.

2. Click the "Create" button to start provisioning a new resource.

3. Select the type of cloud resource you need from the available options.

4. Follow the provisioning steps specific to that resource type.

Accessing resources securely

Each Space has a dedicated "Firewall" tab to manage network access to resources:

1. The default firewall configuration allows unrestricted communication between resources in the same Space.

2. To enable access from your workstation, go to the "Firewall" tab and click "Add" in the upper right corner.

3. Specify the service port to open and add your workstation's IP address as the traffic source.

4. Click "Add" to apply the new firewall rule.

Modifying Space settings

As your needs change, you can modify Space settings:

1. Switch to the "Settings" tab within your Space.

2. From here you can update the assigned COA, transfer ownership, or delete the Space entirely.

3. When transferring ownership, be aware that the new owner is not automatically granted access to existing resources. The original owner will need to create accounts for the new owner on each resource individually.

By organizing your cloud resources into thoughtfully designed Spaces, you can keep your SpinUp environment secure, easy to manage, and cost-optimized. The SpinUp team is available to assist with any questions you may have about making the most effective use of Spaces for your projects and applications.

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