Overview of the Workstation Service
Oracle Workstation Service is a scalable and secure Oracle Cloud service that simplifies the creation and management of computational resources and storage.
With Workstation Service you can create a computational environment in the cloud, with access via Virtual Desktops, Terminals, or common web interfaces like Jupyter; upload and download data from an on-prem system to Cloud and, connect the data to pre-configured workloads. Workstation service also enables estimating the cost of the underlying resources before creating them.
About Workstation Service
Workstations
Workstations are designed to be specific computational environments that are pre-configured for certain use cases. They may be a single virtual machine or a full cluster, but will typically have a user-friendly interface to log into and manage. Workstations come in a variety of flavors that align with specific use cases and research domains. Workstations are designed to be created and destroyed often because each time they spin up they will have the exact same configuration. Workstations can have long-term data stored in a Share Drive rather than on a local disk to allow the data, scripts, and custom settings to be managed by their own lifecycle and be connected to workstations as necessary. Workstations can be left as a long-running resource if desired.
Share Drive
Share Drive is a Cloud storage system that allows users to store and use files from anywhere in the cloud. They allow users to upload/download data via the browser or easily connect to workstations to access files programmatically. Share Drive can be connected to multiple workstations at once allowing you to share data, scripts, files, etc. across a collection of resources at once.
Capabilities:
- Ability to create storage based on size or cost.
- Upload files or folders to a Share Drive by simple drag & drop. For data sizes larger than 10 GB we do not recommend using the UI.
- Download files and/or folders by selecting the object and using the download * button or directly from the file menu.
- Easy to access, navigate and process data on Share Drive by connecting it to an active workstation.
Note: Share Drives are not designed to be high-performance file systems. For workloads that require large IOPS we recommend using Share Drive for reading data and writing final outputs, but use the local disk, or other high-performance data systems to run calculations and store intermediate files.
Getting Started
Pre-requisites
Before users start creating Workstations, you have to configure the policies. All policies should be created at the parent compartment level.
Creating Policies
- Open the Oracle Cloud console navigation menu and click on Identity & Security. Under Identity click on Dynamic Groups.
- Create a dynamic group named workstation-service-dynamic-group for workstation service. Add a relevant description.
- In the Matching Rules section, select Match any rules defined below and add rules with the format
All {Instance.compartment.id = ‘ocid1.compartment.oc1..uniqueforcompartment’}
This matching rule means that all resources created in your compartment are members of workstation-service-dynamic-group. - Navigate to Policies under Identity. Choose the root compartment and click on Create Policies.
- Name it as workstation-policy and add the policies below:
Allow service workstation to use logs in tenancy Allow service workstation to manage workflow-family in tenancy Allow service workstation to manage instance-agent-command-family in tenancy Allow service workstation to read objectstorage-namespaces in tenancy Allow service workstation to manage object-family in tenancy Allow service workstation to read instance-family in tenancy Allow service workstation to manage orm-family in tenancy Allow service workstation to manage usage-report in tenancy Allow service workstation to read compartments in tenancy - Create another policy for the dynamic group (created above) in the compartment you create the workstation :
Allow dynamic-group <workstation-service-dynamic-group> to manage object-family in compartment <user's workstation compartment> Allow dynamic-group <workstation-service-dynamic-group> to manage instance-agent-command-execution-family in compartment <user's workstation compartment>
Create SSH key Pair
Share Drive
Creating a Share Drive
- From the Overview page click on the Share Drive link to navigate to the Share Drive page.
- Click the Create Share Drive button
- Fill in the required details in the Create Share Drive wizard.
- Name, Description - To uniquely identify a Share Drive
- Region - Localized geographical area for data availability
- Share Drive is now ready for use.
Upload Data to Share Drive
Moving data into and out of Share Drive is a core capability that can be accomplished in a few ways. Note, that this method is not recommended for data sizes larger than 10GB.
- Navigate to an existing Share Drive and click on the Upload Button.
- You can choose to upload files or folders. When picking folders, the application will automatically upload the folder you selected and all files and sub-folders within the folder. Select what you would like to upload and click the Upload Objects button. You will see the progress of each file uploaded.
- Once all files are uploaded close this screen.
- All the uploaded files and/or folders will be listed under Share Drive.
Navigating, Downloading, from Share Drive
- You can navigate by clicking or expanding on the folder.
- To download data from the UI, simply click on the file you want to download and click the Download button on the screen or you can click on the “more” button where the file is located and select the Download action from the menu.
- To delete files, click on the “more” button where the file is located and select the Delete action from the menu.
Workstations
Creating a workstation
The workstation page is displayed when you navigate to the Workstations section from the overview page.
- Choose the required compartment from the compartment dropdown in the left pane of the page.
- Click on Create Workstation, a wizard will take you through the creation steps. Fill in the required details.
- Compartment is prepopulated from the previous selection.
- Provide a meaningful name for you to identify the workstation.
- Budget field is optional. Click on Next
- Environment - Choosing the focus area will deploy one of the pre-configured environments. You can also build your own by choosing the default option. Click Next
- Options -
- Choose an instance size
- Username and Password for accessing the applications
- Optional, you can choose a resource prefix to uniquely identify resources and Boot volume for your instance. Each pre-configured environment has a default boot volume configured and this field will throw an error if the overwritten value is lesser.
- Finally, review the configuration choices and the estimate before creating the workstation. You can always go back and change the configuration to match your estimate. Submit.
- The workstation is now ready.
Note, that applications on the workstation typically take up to 15 mins to be available.
Installing application
Users have full access on their workstations and can pip, dnf, rpm, yum install libraries or applications as needed.
Workstation Images and Configurations
Workstation Service offers a variety of pre-configured workstation templates to get started.
Default
Base Image, Drivers and Components
Libraries
- numpy
- TigerVNC
- s3fs-fuse
- jq
- python36-oci-cli
Applications
- TigerVNC
- noVNC (Virtual Desktop)
Life Sciences
Base Image, Drivers and Components
- Oracle Linux 8 - Developer Edition
- bowtie
- busco
- BWA
- clustalw
- cutadapt
- FASTQC
- FASTTREE
- HIstat2
- kallisto
- mafft
- Mothur
- multiqc
- muscle
- PHYLIP
- prank
- samtools
- STAR
- SUBREAD
- TEtranscripts
- TopHat
- Trinity
- vcftools
Libraries
- gcc
- gcc-c++
- kernal-devel
- pandas
- Bio
- Biopython
- gcc-gfortran
- HTSeq
- openmpi
- openmpi-devel
Applications
- TigerVNC
- noVNC (Virtual Desktop)
- FASTQC
- openbabel
- Xtandem
- Jupyter Lab
Computational Chemistry
Base Image, Drivers and Components
- Oracle Linux 8 - Developer Edition
- autodock
- autodoc-vina
- nwchem
- openbabel
- quantum-espresso
- Xtandem
Libraries
- Biopython
- gcc-gfortran
- openmpi
- openmpi-devel
Applications
- noVNC (Virtual Desktop)
- Jupyter Lab
GeoSpatial
Base Image, Drivers and Components
Libraries
- Proj
- GEOS
- GDAL
- dask
- geopandas
- pandas
- matplotlib
- mapclassify
- PySAL
- geoCAT-comp
- xarray
Applications
- TigerVNC
- noVNC (Virtual Desktop)
- Jupyter Lab
AI/ML
Base Image, Drivers and Components
Libraries
- PyTorch
- Tensorflow
- scikit-learn
- pyspark
- dask
- Vowpal Wabbit
- Anaconda (“conda”)
- OCI SDK for Python
- OCI Accelerated Data Science Kit (including MLX and AutoML)
Applications
- Visual Studio Code
- PyCharm Community Edition
- OCI CLI
- ADS CLI
- ODSC CLI (may require additional setup)
Sign up for Oracle Workstation Service
Users can request access to the service by emailing the details below to workstationservice_ww@oracle.com
- Full Name
- Organization/ Institution Name and Website
- Job Title
- Describe your current research project or use case for Oracle Cloud
- Do you have an Oracle Cloud account(Y/N)
- If Yes, Provide Tenancy OCID
Get a Cloud Account
If you don’t have a Oracle Cloud Account, here are some of the ways to get it.
For Researchers
Oracle Cloud Starter Award
For Everyone
Oracle Cloud Free Tier
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Will I be charged for this service?
Oracle Workstation Service is a free service. Users will be charged only for using the underlying resources. For example, compute will be billed when the workstation is running. -
Why do I see Connection Errors when trying to launch applications from workstation? It takes about 5-10 mins for applications to be ready once the workstation is created,re-try after some time. If the issue is persistent, email: worstationservice_ww@oracle.com
-
How do I report an issue/bug?
You can report issues by emailing: worstationservice_ww@oracle.com