Frequently asked questions about Scan Cloud Services

Contact and Support

I have a sales inquiry; how can I get in touch?
For pre-sales inquiries please contact our cloud specialists here.

I have a support inquiry; how can I get in touch?
For support inquiries please contact our cloud specialists here.

OS and applications

Which operating systems are available on the cloud service?
Scan Cloud vGPU instances are available with a choice of Microsoft Windows 10 Pro or Ubuntu 20.04 with all the drivers configured. If you choose Windows you’ll need to activate the operating system with your Windows license key.

What applications are supported by the cloud service?
As these services operate on a standard Windows 10 Pro or Ubuntu 20.04 instance with an NVIDIA RTX virtual GPU, they support the most popular DCC and office applications. The service also supports libraries and frameworks available in optimised form from the NVIDIA GPU CLOUD (NGC If in doubt please contact our cloud specialists.

Do we need to provide our own operating system license?
Yes, each cloud workstation or rendering service instance irequires its own Windows license provided by your organisation. For cloud AI and HPC instances, Ubuntu is open source, so no licence is required.

Do we need to provide our own applications and licenses?
Yes, it is your responsibility to ensure all further applications, frameworks or libraries are installed and correctly licensed.

Usage

What are the system requirements for my local device?
Our cloud service can be accessed by any device running Windows 10 or later or MacOS 10.13 or later with a minimum 10Mbps / 4G or faster Internet connection, with a screen resolution of 1,024 x 768 or higher.

How do I connect my local device to my cloud service instance?
Local devices connect securely to a Scan Cloud Linux instance using either SSH (Linux users) or the MobaXterm client (Windows users).

How do transfer data to/from my cloud service instance?
We recommend storing your data for the Scan Cloud service in our purpose-built secure storage nodes, which can be easily scaled to your requirements. There are no surcharges for transferring data into or out of Scan Cloud storage.

You can access data stored on your local device using the Remote Desktop Connection client in Windows or SSH connection or MobaXterm client in Ubuntu. There are no surcharges for transferring data into or out of Scan Cloud storage.

Alternatively, you can also use third-party cloud storage services using their supplied Windows plugin, however some of these storage providers may charge you for data transfers.

How do I connect my local device to my cloud service
Local devices connect securely to a Scan Cloud instance using the OpenVPN client and a specially provided .ovpn configuration file that is personalised to your account. Depending on the local OS, Windows and MacOS clients use their respective Remote Desktop Connection clients. The MacOS versus is freely available from the Apple App Store. Easy to follow step-by-step onboarding instructions will provided when you sign-up.

We’re running out of storage space, can this be increased?
Additional capacity can be easily added to the shared network storage common to your account. We can also create custom profiles with additional storage on request, see below for more details on custom profiles.

Can I switch profiles?
If your current profile doesn’t meet your performance needs, please get in touch and we can provision you with a profile that delivers higher performance.

Can I use a Scan Cloud service for mining cryptocurrencies?
Scan Cloud services are specifically provisioned for artists, architects, engineers and scientists using Windows or Linux based DCC applications. Mining cryptocurrencies is not supported or permitted.

I think my service might be down, how can I check?
For technical support please contact our cloud specialists here.

What countries is Scan Cloud available in?
Scan Cloud is currently only available in the UK. We can provide locally hosted cloud solutions for customers in the rest of the world.

Profiles

I can’t see the profile I want; can you create a custom profile for me?
Our standard profiles are suitable for the vast majority of popular applications or frameworks, but we can create custom profiles with differing levels of GPU performance, CPU cores, memory and local storage on request. Please contact our cloud experts who can help profile your requirements.

What subscriptions do you offer?
All our cloud subscriptions are available in monthly commitments.

General

Do you offer supported pricing for education customers?
Yes, we provide price supported offers for validated education customers, please contact one of our cloud specialists for more information.

Where are Scan Cloud services hosted
Scan Cloud services are hosted in UK-based datacentres by leading company iomart, operating facilities in Manchester and London and Verne Global in its facilities near Reykjavik, Iceland.