Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) is a pre-configured computing infrastructure from the "Cloud" to meet your computing needs, while you focus on the project execution. VCE acts as a shared computer accessible from anywhere over the Internet to enhance collaboration between project members. VCE is useful as a tool to monitor your projects in real time.

You can choose VCEs with either Linux or Windows operating system. You can find Linux VCE in multiple flavors like Ubuntu, CentOS etc. A Windows VCE comes with Microsoft Windows 2003 operating system. For exact information on pre-configured software and operating system available, please see the "Subscribe to VCE" section.

The VCE that you use for executing your projects is brought to you by packaging Amazon EC2 Web Services. An active, running VCE is an Amazon EC2 instance. 8KMiles relies on the Amazon Web Services, its promising technology and uptime.

Every VCE is secured behind a firewall with all ports closed except port 22 (for ssh connections to Linux VCE) and port 3389 (for terminal services connection to a Windows VCE). Beyond this when a user connects through NX Client, Clipboard copy from VCE to local system is also not allowed. Buyer can control outbound network trafic from the Linux VCE at user level. Buyer can select a particular user and deny or grant ability to transfer files out of the VCE. Buyer can also control SFTP server access at individual user level. Note: By default, every user added to the VCE by a Buyer can connect to SFTP server and Outbound trafic is allowed. In case if the user need not SFTP or access Internet from with in the VCE, then you can restrict this at user level.

Data on every VCE is backed up when you shutdown a VCE. The data on '/' and '/8kuserdata' is backed up before actually processing the shutdown request. Please note that, the data stored on '/mnt' folder will not be backed up and any data stored on '/mnt' will be lost when you shutdown a VCE. Data backed up during shutdown is restored back to the VCE when the VCE is booted again.

Select a VCE from the "Subscribe to VCE" section. Click on the image next to the suitable VCE to open a subscription form. Enter the subscription details in this form and Click on 'Subscribe' button. In this subscription form, you are required to provide the following:

• Nick Name: A friendly nick name for the VCE to identify the same in the Dashboard.
• Project: A project name to which the VCE will be associated. If you wish not to associate to a project, select 'None'.
• Plan: Choose a plan from the available plans.
• Renewal Type: You can either choose 'Manual' or 'Automatic' options for renewing the subscription to the VCE. On choosing 'Manual' type, subscription to the VCE should be renewed on or before the subscription expiry. To manually renew the subscription, please click on the "Renew" button available in the dashboard. On choosing 'Automatic' type, subscription to the VCE is renewed automatically on subscription expiry.
• Select a Payment Option: You can either select a credit card or bank account here. The selected account will be charged with the plan amount.

On successful subscription, you can see the VCE under "Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Dashboard". You can launch the subscribed VCE in this section by clicking on button provided with each of the VCE. On launching the VCE, usage hour count is started. Any full or partial hours consumed is calculated as one full VCE usage hour. You can click on button to shutdown the VCE and stop the usage hour counter. You can shutdown the VCE is when it’s not in use and boot it back when ever required.

A subscription to a VCE is active till either "Validity period" or "VCE usage hours" are exhausted. Hence, if either "VCE usage hours" or "Validity period" is exhausted, subscription to a VCE gets expired.

Renewal procedure for the VCE depends on the renewal type that was opted during the VCE subscription.

In case of Automatic renewal:

VCE is renewed on expiry of the current subscription to the VCE, automatically. Subscriber's credit card or bank account is charged with a corresponding plan fee. The initial subscription plan is considered for every automatic renewal.

In case of Manual renewal:

A "Renew" button is provided for every VCE in the VCE dashboard. On clicking this button subscriber will be given an option to choose a different plan if required and renew the subscription. Subscriber can renew the subscription any time before the current subscription expiry and not later than 5 days from the subscription expiry date. In case subscriber chooses to renew the subscription before expiry, then such a renewal request will be processed by 8KMiles when the current subscription ends.

The subscriber to the VCE is advised to renew the VCE before it expires. On expiry of the subscription, VCE will be shutdown and user will not be able to use the particular VCE. In an attempt to help our valuable user, 8KMiles provides an additional 5 days of grace period starting from the date of expiry to renew the subscription. During this grace period, subscriber is allowed to renew or terminate the subscription. User can boot back and continue to use the expired VCE when the subscription is renewed before the end of grace period. In case the subscription to the VCE is not renewed before the end of grace period, expired VCE will be deleted permanently with out any further notice. In such an event, the data or configurations on the VCE is not available for future use and can not be recovered.

On few versions of MS Windows Vista operating system, it is observed that automatic download and install of NX client is not responding properly. As a work around, please download and install the free NX client software on your PC manually and then click on 'Connect' button in the VCE dashboard. Click here to download a free NX client software from NoMachine's website.

VCE dashboard helps you in monitoring your infrastructure usage and costs per projects. It also helps managing VCE by Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Dashboard tab provides you an easy way to manage your VCEs. All the successfully subscribed VCEs will be listed to manage and use them for project execution. VCEs can be filtered per project. Any VCE which is not associated to a project is represented as "Personal".

You can perform following actions against each VCE: