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# Introduction

OpenDC is a free and open-source platform for cloud datacenter simulation aimed at both research and education.

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            <img src={require("@site/src/components/HomepageFeatures/screenshot-construction.png").default} alt="Constructing a cloud datacenter with OpenDC" />
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Users can construct new datacenter designs and define portfolios of scenarios (experiments) to explore how their designs
perform under different workloads, schedulers, and phenomena (e.g., failures or performance interference).

OpenDC is accessible both as a ready-to-use platform hosted by us online at [app.opendc.org](https://app.opendc.org), and as
source code that users can run locally on their own machine or via Docker.

To learn more about OpenDC, have a look through our paper on [OpenDC 2.0](https://atlarge-research.com/pdfs/ccgrid21-opendc-paper.pdf)
or on our [vision](https://atlarge-research.com/pdfs/opendc-vision17ispdc_cr.pdf).
