Philippart
Golden Member
I attended the TechConference in Geneva last June and was completely blown away by windows azure (I am usually not too excited by the cloud), this is why I wrote this tutorial for you:
What is Boinc Azure (Windows Azure)?
Windows Azure is Microsoft's hosting platform for all kind of cloud services, similar to the one that exists from Amazon.
Apart from regular web hosting/backup/streaming/... it also offers running a real computer in the cloud, they call it "virtual machine". Although it is called Windows Azure, it also lets you run all your favorite linux flavors.
Boinc Azure is simply the idea of running Boinc in the cloud using Windows Azure.
How is it free? Any costs?
Microsoft currently offers a 90 day free trial, the only cost is about 15-20 minutes of your time to set it up.
After these 90 days you can look at this price calculator https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?scenario=virtual-machines
There is no automatic subscription after the trial period, so you won't be charged in any way.
So why not profit from 90 days of free crunching?
How to
Note: The very last step of this howto is platform related, I did it on a windows machine.
1. Go to http://www.windowsazure.com/ and click "Free Trial" on the upper right corner. Click "Try it free" on the next page
2. You need to login with your Live ID/Microsoft account (your hotmail/live e-mail)
3. Now you'll see the trial offer (make sure to select your country on the bottom), on the following pages you need to provide a mobile phone number for a confirmation code (or a regular phone number) and a credit card number. Now don't get scared, you'll see that it costs 0$ to try and there is no automatic subscription after the trial expires, furthermore you can cancel your trial at any time. The reason they need: if you go crazy during the trial and attempt to setup a farm of 20 4-core machines, you will have to pay.
The account you create is capped at 0$, once you want to use more cores or whatever, your current setup will be suspended until you confirm that you are aware that there may be fees.
4. You should arrive on a page called account (if not click "account") and then click "preview features" as shown below:
Then sign up for "Virtual Machines & Virtual Networks"
5. Click Portal on the upper right (agree to use the beta version)
Click "+ New" as shown below and choose "virtual machine" then "from gallery"
6. Choose your prefered platform (I chose server 2012) add a hostname, location, username, and size (please see note below) then give it about 10 minutes to setup.
*Please note*
The trial lets you run 750hours/month (about 24/7 a month) for each of the 3 months on a "small" VM. This is a single core machine, I read (but haven't tried) that you could also setup a bigger machine, but with equivalent running time: 750 singlecore hours = 187,5 quadcore hours per month, after that time your machine will get suspended till the beginning of the next month.
7. Now you should see your virtual machine in the portal!
8. Click on your virtual machine and click "connect" on the bottom as shown.
A windows remote desktop window will open: enter the username and password of your azure virtual machine, now you can use your screen, mouse and keyboard as if you were sitting in front of it.
9. Install Boinc and you're done 😉
(Note:
a) for people unfamiliar with internet explorer's default security settings on a server OS: just "add" every website to the authorised list when prompted
b) you don't need to install any server feature or role, just close the server manager window)
Additional Info
the following screenshot shows the usage of my setup for the last 24 hours.
it is perfectly normal that during the first 10-15 minutes after logging in for the first time a service ".net optimization service" will rob some cycles from your boinc project. The service will disappear after the initial 10-15 minutes.
here's what it looks like:
I don't know if it's readable, but this is the CPU: AMD Opteron 4171HE @2.1Ghz
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Opteron 4171 HE OS4171FNU6DGO.html
I don't have any PPD/RAC info yet, I keep you updated. Whatever the results may be, I gladly accept every free credit 🙂
Have fun setting up your Boinc Azure, every credit helps our TeAm 🙂
What is Boinc Azure (Windows Azure)?
Windows Azure is Microsoft's hosting platform for all kind of cloud services, similar to the one that exists from Amazon.
Apart from regular web hosting/backup/streaming/... it also offers running a real computer in the cloud, they call it "virtual machine". Although it is called Windows Azure, it also lets you run all your favorite linux flavors.
Boinc Azure is simply the idea of running Boinc in the cloud using Windows Azure.
How is it free? Any costs?
Microsoft currently offers a 90 day free trial, the only cost is about 15-20 minutes of your time to set it up.
After these 90 days you can look at this price calculator https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?scenario=virtual-machines
There is no automatic subscription after the trial period, so you won't be charged in any way.
So why not profit from 90 days of free crunching?
How to
Note: The very last step of this howto is platform related, I did it on a windows machine.
1. Go to http://www.windowsazure.com/ and click "Free Trial" on the upper right corner. Click "Try it free" on the next page
2. You need to login with your Live ID/Microsoft account (your hotmail/live e-mail)
3. Now you'll see the trial offer (make sure to select your country on the bottom), on the following pages you need to provide a mobile phone number for a confirmation code (or a regular phone number) and a credit card number. Now don't get scared, you'll see that it costs 0$ to try and there is no automatic subscription after the trial expires, furthermore you can cancel your trial at any time. The reason they need: if you go crazy during the trial and attempt to setup a farm of 20 4-core machines, you will have to pay.
The account you create is capped at 0$, once you want to use more cores or whatever, your current setup will be suspended until you confirm that you are aware that there may be fees.
4. You should arrive on a page called account (if not click "account") and then click "preview features" as shown below:
Then sign up for "Virtual Machines & Virtual Networks"
5. Click Portal on the upper right (agree to use the beta version)
Click "+ New" as shown below and choose "virtual machine" then "from gallery"
6. Choose your prefered platform (I chose server 2012) add a hostname, location, username, and size (please see note below) then give it about 10 minutes to setup.
*Please note*
The trial lets you run 750hours/month (about 24/7 a month) for each of the 3 months on a "small" VM. This is a single core machine, I read (but haven't tried) that you could also setup a bigger machine, but with equivalent running time: 750 singlecore hours = 187,5 quadcore hours per month, after that time your machine will get suspended till the beginning of the next month.
7. Now you should see your virtual machine in the portal!
8. Click on your virtual machine and click "connect" on the bottom as shown.
A windows remote desktop window will open: enter the username and password of your azure virtual machine, now you can use your screen, mouse and keyboard as if you were sitting in front of it.
9. Install Boinc and you're done 😉
(Note:
a) for people unfamiliar with internet explorer's default security settings on a server OS: just "add" every website to the authorised list when prompted
b) you don't need to install any server feature or role, just close the server manager window)
Additional Info
the following screenshot shows the usage of my setup for the last 24 hours.
it is perfectly normal that during the first 10-15 minutes after logging in for the first time a service ".net optimization service" will rob some cycles from your boinc project. The service will disappear after the initial 10-15 minutes.
here's what it looks like:
I don't know if it's readable, but this is the CPU: AMD Opteron 4171HE @2.1Ghz
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Opteron 4171 HE OS4171FNU6DGO.html
I don't have any PPD/RAC info yet, I keep you updated. Whatever the results may be, I gladly accept every free credit 🙂
Have fun setting up your Boinc Azure, every credit helps our TeAm 🙂
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