Cloud services of the ACG are used to provide virtual machines for researchers. These services are primarily virtual machines – a way of constructing a computer of software that makes use of the ACGs supercomputer resources to provide computation without purchasing actual computer hardware.
Use this thread to ask questions about these services.
Can I change from one size of virtual machine to another without disrupting my existing configuration?
In most cases you can INCREASE the size of a virtual machine safely. Decreasing the size of an existing VM can be problematic. Contact your ACG representative to discuss your needs or email them to acg@maine.edu.
Can I access my virtual machine from a remote location?
A correctly configured virtual machine can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Public IP addresses are part of the package offered with ACG Cloud Computing. Keep in mind that you’ll need to consider Cyber Security when running such a machine. ACG can help you to configure your virtual machines to protect your data.
For the cloud service, what preconfigured distros are available?
Virtual machines are offered in a variety of sizes and operating system distributions. Machine sizes vary from Tiny (single processor) through Small (two processors) , Medium (four processors), Large (eight processors) to Huge (16 processors). The images are built on 80 Gigabytes of storage. Operating system distributions include Centos 7 Server, Ubuntu 16.04 Server and Windows-2012 Server (4-29-16). Other distributions can be developed if you have a particular need.
What are some similarities and differences between the ACG services and other platforms like AWS?
The services provided are similar – a combination of cloud-based storage, virtual machines and, in some cases, high-performance computing time. ACG services are hosted on machines administered and controlled by the University of Maine System. Access to the hardware, software and data are controlled exclusively by UMS personnel. There are no transfer costs associated with moving data to and from these systems. Conversely, a commercial system (like AWS) is hosted at an unspecified data center and entities having access to those hardware, software and data assets are at the discretion of the cloud service. In addition, commercial entities typically charge a fee for data moving onto and from these machines – which, with large data sets, can often be a significant cost. Commercial services are operated for profit, while the ACG is not.
What protocol(s) can I use to access my virtual machine? What protocol(s) can I use to access my virtual machine?
A variety of networking protocols are available to access virtual machines from the ACG. Those protocols include HTTPS, SSH, VNC and RDP. We also frequently make use of guacamole clients that allow RDP sessions to be wrapped in an HTML5 application – making the machine accessible from any modern browser.
I spun up a new VM but can’t seem to access it via SSH, what do I do?
The most common cause of not being able to SSH into a new VM is not adding the proper security groups to open the firewall. For more information about security groups see our virtual machine cloud documentation at https://docs.google.com/document/d/14m1EMw59y6IvQvN-Jj1qeoWROaWJRTZgnAD4TarqKBY/edit#heading=h.8w0on2rrqcg0