EC2 TESLA GPU instances

[jk123]

Hello!

So I just joined these forums (should have done earlier tbh, been buying rigs and kit here since 2001).

I noticed the DC projects forums so decided id join up and say hi (im doing Einstein @ home)
my comps - http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/hosts_user.php?userid=572821

Also wanted to ask if anyone had tried using EC2 instances to do crunching.

I currently have a quad XL instance with 2 TESLA M2050 GPU's and 16 processors. My problem so far, I have been unable to setup windows server 2008 with an appropriate set of CUDA drivers (despite amazon saying the instance comes with the drivers, the GPU is not recognised by BOINC). The BOINC project page shows me as having the 2 TESLA GPU's.

Just wondering if anyone else had tried EC2 GPU for crunching and how they got it tor work.

At current costs, it is $2.60 an hour to run this instance ad-hoc on EC2 so quite pricey if you want to do it for a while (lucky for me im not footing the bill). Its cheaper to reserve an instance annually if you need one.

/edit - Halz can you do an E@H update please?

 

[jk123]

yeah the Quad XL GPU instance has win server 2008 R2 with CUDA toolkit and drivers installed, i figured it would work off the bat but no such luck.

Despite frequent googling, I have not been able to find a 'CUDA for nubs' guide on how to do this on EC2, I did find a post by a German guy who said he'd done it but not how.

 

[jk123]

How do you access the EC2 server? Is it by RDP? If so then no cuda apps will work, you will have to use VNC or something that doesn't load the Terminal server gfx driver.

I was using RDP yeah, ok I will install vnc on it and try that. I very interested to see how these TESLA units perform vs other GPU's in the nvidia line.

The 8800 GT in one of my machines does a binary pulsar search in about 1h 30m, not sure how fast the newer nvida gpus go.

 

[jk123]

yeah, security is pretty good, you setup the firewall when you build the instance, by default there is only ssh / RDP enabled (linux / windows) but you can dynamically change this as the instance is running.

All the instances in the US data centres seem to come out of the same ip range in Washington state so probably quite easy to target 100's of them with a bit of research and a port scan.

 

[jk123]

Nothing critical and no sensitive personal/company data etc, just figured since the company I work for wants me to test various different instances I would put them to good use.