TPP TWA
From SPCTools
The TPP Web-launcher for Amazon Web Services (TWA) is a cloud computing web-based application for launching your own instance of the Trans-Proteomic Pipeline in the cloud. It simplifies the process of starting an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance with TPP already installed and ready to use.
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Features
- Web based and hosted at http://tools.proteomecenter.org/twa
- Simplifies the process of selecting the latest TPP Amazon Machine Image and EC2 options
- Automatically shuts down an instance after a specified time
- Can be installed locally for greater security
Tutorial
A simple step by step tutorial using TWA is available at TPP_TWA:Tutorial.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Why aren't my access and secret keys saved?
Your access and secret keys aren't saved to avoid the risk of them falling into the wrong hands. Normally to save these keys you would have to store them in a "cookie". Browser security being what it is doing so would risk the chance that other users (or even other websites) reading your browsers cookies and gaining access to your keys.
Why doesn't TWA start a EC2 spot instance?
EC2 spot instances allow you to name your own price for Amazon EC2 computing capacity. You simply bid on spare Amazon EC2 instances and run them whenever your bid exceeds the current Spot Price, which varies in real-time based on supply and demand. TWA doesn't launch spot instances for the reason that the resulting instance would be at the whim of the spot market price. At any time the price could go above your set point and Amazon would then automatically shutdown your instance and you could lose all of your work.
Why did I get a "connection reset" error in my browser?
Because of timing there is a small window of opportunity for the launcher to have detected that the instance has launched but the Petunia web interface isn't hasn't fully started up yet. If you recieve this message simply click on the "Try Again" button.
Where is my data stored in the instance?
When the instance is booted an area under /mnt/tppdata is created to store your work and Petunia is automatically configured to use this area. Under it are two directories called "local" and "ebs" (if Elastic Block Store is used). Any work saved in local directory will only be kept local to that instance. When the instance is terminated or shutdown the data will be deleted automatically and is not recoverable.
The ebs directory is an advanced feature that supports Elastic Block Storage. This is a persistent block level storage volume that can be attached to your EC2 instance. Data stored here is persistent across EC2 instances.
How do I save my work when I shut down the instance
Currently right now any file creation/changes done on the image are not saved automatically. Its the user's responsibility to download and save any results. Alternatively users can create a bucket in Amazon S3 and utilize the S3 sync capability in the TPP web interface to synchronize their data with S3 storage.
How secure is it?
TWA is web application, being written almost entirely in Javascript. It relies on the many security measures already built into modern web browsers to prevent cross site scripting and other vulnerabilities in web computing. Care should always be taken to prevent your access key and secret key from being comprimised and its highly recommended that you change these keys frequently.
