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I'm using EC2 to offload some computing tasks from my desktop - basically running some jobs that would take hours or days on a desktop, nothing particularly large scale, so I'm not looking to setup anything too complex - it should be able to run on a single instance running ubuntu. I know this is stretching the use case of EC2 and there are better long term solutions than using EC2 in this way, but I'll address that at a later point in time.

However, if I use standard, high memory, or high cpu ubuntu server instances, even the XL classes (e.g. m2.4xlarge) are fairly slow in terms of their computing capability, and the cluster compute instances are probably more appropriate for my needs. However, I can't use the cluster compute instances unless I choose the "ubuntu server for cluster instances" images, which are lacking in preinstalled libraries and software. I can install the packages piece-by-piece but this seems like a roundabout way of doing something they're not intended for (I tried swapping an EBS volume from a regular server instance into a cluster instance, but the instance wouldn't boot when I did that).

Basically the bottom line is I would like to use the hardware of their cluster compute instances but not use the stripped down OS so I can run some single instance jobs with a minimal setup. What's the best way to go about this?

daj
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2 Answers2

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Did you look into bootstrapping? A CloudFormation template might be an answer.

Zoltan Toth
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Alex Lokshin
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You can try to use the CloudInit methods to install your required packages on bootup. Basically you write a shell script that is executed every time the instance is started.

j0nes
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  • thanks for the suggestion, but wouldn't isn't there a more direct way to effectively get a ubuntu server installation on a cluster instance than manually scripting installation of all the packages that are missing? Seems like there must be a more direct way - I must be missing the reasoning for not being able to start an ubuntu server image on a cluster instance. – daj Sep 03 '12 at 15:10
  • I am also using cc instances for scientific model generation, and I only have to install some packages. I have a variation of this model running on c1.medium instances, and the list of to-be-installed packages is the same. Therefore I used the CloudInit way to solve the installation problem. – j0nes Sep 03 '12 at 15:17