Your free beta guide
DCS is a cloud for hobbyists, developers and enthusiasts. Beta access is invitation-only and free. You do not need a card, and joining does not start a subscription.
New customer deployments are currently paused while launch checks are completed. The steps below apply when deployment access opens.
Before you deploy
Use noncritical projects. Beta capacity and availability are limited, and maintenance can interrupt your workloads. Keep your own copies of code and data you need; customer backup and restore guarantees are not part of this beta.
- Accept your invitation, choose a password, and sign in. If your invitation has expired, ask the person who invited you for a replacement.
- Select your organisation. Open Billing to see its free-beta grants, quantities, and expiry dates.
- Choose Create a resource, select a size covered by your grant, and choose a project and private network. Review and deploy. There is no checkout.
- Follow the saved order until deployment starts. You can close the page and return later. If it needs attention, retain the support reference and use Retry after resolving the reported issue.
Connect and publish
Follow the private Kubernetes connection guide and HTTP publishing guide for detailed steps.
A virtual machine gives you a full operating system. Open its browser console to finish installation. A K3s cluster runs Kubernetes for your container applications.
For K3s, open Connect, download a device enrollment key, and follow the private-network instructions. Download your personal kubeconfig and use the commands shown to check nodes and deploy with kubectl or Helm. The kubeconfig expires; reopen Connect for a replacement.
Publish an HTTP application from its Kubernetes Service to receive a generated HTTPS hostname. General public TCP, SSH, and WebSocket publishing are outside the beta publishing scope.
Limits and leaving
Grants and host capacity are checked separately. A grant does not guarantee that a host has room. Stopping a resource still consumes its allocation. Delete it to release capacity after cleanup is confirmed.
Grant expiry blocks new deployments without charging you or automatically stopping existing resources. Issued device keys and Kubernetes credentials can be revoked from Connect. Organisation administrators can remove members; revocation remains pending if a required service is unreachable.
Your selected plan shows CPU, memory, disk size and node count before deployment. Organisation quotas and available host capacity may impose lower limits than your grant. The initial beta has a ceiling of ten virtual machines across the service; this is not ten guaranteed places for each organisation.
Stopping or rebooting a resource keeps its disk and its allocation. Deleting a VM or container removes its disks; deleting a cluster removes its nodes and data stored on those nodes. Copy anything you need elsewhere before deletion. There is no promised undo or restore.
There is no paid subscription to cancel during the free beta. To leave, delete your resources and contact support about account closure. Account and privacy requests are handled separately from resource deletion.
Cluster administrator access is powerful. Revoke any additional credentials a member created inside Kubernetes as part of your own cluster administration.
Need help?
Email [email protected] for help or feedback. Include the order or access reference, the time of the problem and what you were doing. Do not send passwords, tokens, device keys, or kubeconfigs. Support is best effort; this beta has no guaranteed response or availability time.
Check beta service status for availability and incident updates, including when the dashboard is unavailable. The mailbox shares the development mail service, so a mail outage can delay replies.
Read Legal & privacy for service conditions, privacy information and account requests. Draft documents are labelled as drafts; customer ordering stays closed until the required publication and launch checks pass.