Version 2.0 (Updated July 2026) - Previous Terms of Service Versions

Anyone using the Carolina CloudApps service must agree to the following terms of service before creating or contributing to a site.

Important Information

Carolina CloudApps support staff reserves the right to remove any and all sites without prior consent.. It is also possible that your site(s) will experience periodic downtimes during upgrades, installs, configuring, or optimization of the service. When possible, an attempt will be made to notify all users prior to any interruptions in service.

As system administrators of the Carolina CloudApps environment, please be aware that ITS has the right to review all content stored therein. ITS may also add appropriate information security or unit IT staff to any site.

Acceptable Use Policy

The Information Technology Acceptable Use Policy applies to all use of Carolina CloudApps.

Carolina CloudApps is designed to allow people to create their projects with a URL in the ".cloudapps.unc.edu" Domain and is intended to be used for University-related projects. This service is not for personal projects. Please do not register department names, or special names, unless you are the official representative for that department, or project. Sites that are registered to unauthorized persons, or for unauthorized uses, will be deleted and assigned to appropriate departments and or projects. Repeat offenders may be refused access to the service.

University departments, centers, and other organizations with University business Web application development needs can request a department/project space that is not tied to an individual. Details on this service and how to request space is available in the Carolina CloudApps: Department Project Space document.

Carolina CloudApps may be used by student organizations. UNC policy requires that student groups be officially recognized and sponsored by a University department before using campus resources. Other non-University groups may not use Carolina CloudApps.

Carolina CloudApps requires people to authenticate using their Onyen. Carolina CloudApps does not allow non-Onyen logins. As such, all content will adhere to the ITS Onyen Policy.

All applications and sites in Carolina CloudApps must comply with University security, accessibility, and related policies. In particular, note that applications and sites made available to more than the person developing them must meet accessibility standards. Information on accessibility is available on the Digital Accessibility Office site. Applications must be created and maintained using controls specified in the Information Security Controls Standard, including requirements for secure application development.

Environment Backup

People using Carolina CloudApps are responsible for creating and maintaining their backup strategy. ITS will have a disaster recovery backup of the system itself, but we cannot accurately provide full backups for each project, especially for the source code from your external source code repository or the point in time recovery of your database resources. As such, the r the site maintainer(s) should use built-in OpenShift command line tools and scheduling tools like cron. These tools will assist with creating recoverable copies of your code, data, configuration and log files. Please see the Carolina CloudApps: Backing up Your Applications document for more information.

Supported software and versions

Carolina CloudApps will support only the versions of the underlying software images while they are supported by the OpenShift Container Platform vendor. If ITS determines risks to the University fromrunning older (or any specific) versions of the software, those versions may be removed from the service. Software updates will be communicated to people using the systemusing the ITS change process with as much notice as feasible.

Any software installed in a container by people using the container is maintained by the site owner, and must have regular updates applied. All security patching must comply with the Vulnerability Management Standard.

Sensitive Data

Carolina CloudApps has worked with the Information Security Office to obtain approval for storing or processing the following types of sensitive data for department/project-based projects only:

Note that we DO NOT support the processing or storing of Purchasing Card Industry (PCI) card information including: ACH, card holder, credit card, or other payment information as defined by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard. If you have a business need for processing payment information, contact the University's Merchant Services group at certifi@unc.edu for information on using the TouchNet payment gateway service.

If you need to store or process sensitive data on the Carolina CloudApps platform, you will need to complete a University Data Assistance “Other Review” request and retain the resulting summary and approval (keep a copy in your project space for each application).

Learn more on the Data Governance at UNC site

Ethical Standards

People using the Carolina CloudApps service are expected to exhibit high ethical standards and polite conduct in their use of the computing resources. It is expected that people will behave responsibly, ethically, and politely, without reminders or enforcement.

Terms of Agreement for Onyens

Any person using the Carolina CloudApps service is solely responsible for the use of their UNC Onyen, the resources to which that Onyen provides access, activity on the network connected to that person's account or computer, and for the content of any information made available through use of these resources. Activity is subject to the laws of the State of North Carolina and the United States, as well as the policies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. By accepting computing and network privileges and continued access to these resources, you are also accepting the following terms:

  • Access to computing and network resources granted through the issuing of a UNC Onyen may be used only by the specific person to whom the Onyen is issued and may not be shared with other individuals.
  • Data and network activity may be reviewed by ITS or other University staff under certain circumstances. This includes: at the specific request of the owner of data for staff to examine content; the administration of a system or the network requiring special intervention; and Information Security or Privacy investigation; or other situations under the Access to Individual User Accounts Policy.

Legal, Ethical, and University Policy Prohibitions

The following list of prohibitions is meant as a representative sampling and is by no means intended to provide a comprehensive collection of legal, ethical, and University policy violations.

Activities prohibited when using Carolina CloudApps includes:

  • Harassment
  • Any commercial or for-profit ventures
  • Disrupting a system or the network, consuming excessive system or network resources, or preventing authorized access of such resources for use by others
  • Access, attempted or successful, to resources for which you do not have proper authorization
  • Distribution of pornography
  • Any illegal activity
  • Copyright violation

Consequences of Misuse

Violations of the above terms of agreement may result in suspension of computing privileges, disciplinary review, termination of employment, and/or legal action. UNC will refer serious violations to the appropriate departments for disciplinary action.

Classroom and Student Use

Faculty members intending to use a Carolina CloudApps site as part of a class should inform students of and follow the online class statement, which must be listed on the class syllabus.

Web Security Controls

The Carolina CloudApps team worked with the ITS Information Security Office to add some additional web security controls in front of the Carolina CloudApps service. Details about the security controls are available in the Carolina CloudApps: Web Security Controls document.

Idling

The Carolina CloudApps platform utilizes a feature called idling. This feature is an automatic process that evaluates every application on the platform to determine if it has been accessed recently. If it has not, the platform "idles" the application. This means the application is still available but it is in a paused state where it isn't actively using any resources. The next time the application is accessed and receives network traffic, it is returned to a running state. Additional information is available in the Carolina CloudApps: Application Idling document.

Additional Information

Learn more about security, privacy, and sensitive data at the Safe Computing at UNC site.