Before starting, you will need the following:
- A MATLAB® license that is current on Software Maintenance Service (SMS). For more information, see Configure MATLAB Licensing on the Cloud.
- An Amazon Web Services™ (AWS) account.
- An SSH Key Pair for your AWS account in the appropriate region. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Key Pairs.
You are responsible for the cost of the AWS services used when you create a cluster using this guide. Resource settings, such as instance type, will affect the cost of deployment. For cost estimates, see the pricing pages for each AWS service you will be using. Prices are subject to change.
The following guide will help you automate the process of running the MATLAB desktop on Amazon Web Services and connect to it using the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). The automation is accomplished using an AWS CloudFormation template. The template is a JSON file that defines the resources needed to run MATLAB on AWS. For information about the architecture of this solution, see Architecture and Resources. For information about templates, see AWS CloudFormation Templates.
- If you don't have an AWS account, create one at https://aws.amazon.com by following the on-screen instructions.
- Use the regions selector in the navigation bar to choose the US East (N. Virginia) or EU (Ireland) region where you want to deploy MATLAB.
- Create a key pair in that region. The key pair is necessary as it is the only way to connect to the instance as an administrator.
- If necessary, request a service limit increase for the Amazon EC2 instance type or VPCs. You might need to do this if you already have existing deployments that use that instance type or you think you might exceed the default limit with this deployment.
Click the Launch Stack button to deploy a standalone MATLAB desktop client on AWS. This will open the CloudFormation Create Stack screen in your web browser.
| Release | Region | Ubuntu 18.04 VM |
|---|---|---|
| MATLAB R2019b | us-east-1 (N. Virginia) |  |
| MATLAB R2019b | eu-west-1 (Ireland) | |
| MATLAB R2019b | ap-northeast-1 (Tokyo) | |
For other releases, see How do I launch a template that uses a previous MATLAB release?
Note: Creating a stack on AWS can take a few minutes.
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Provide values for parameters in the Create Stack page:
Name Value Stack name Stack name can include letters (A-Z and a-z), numbers (0-9), and dashes (-). It must be unique within an AWS account. Example: Boston
Instance Name Give your MATLAB virtual machine a name. Example: MATLAB Desktop
AWS EC2 Instance type Choose the AWS instance type to use for running MATLAB. Check to ensure the instance type is available as not all types are available in all regions. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types and Pricing. Example: m5.xlarge
Storage Size Specify the size in GB of the root volume. Must be a number Example: 128
IAM Role (optional) Specify an name of an IAM Role to associate with this instance. Example: S3AccessRole
Allow RDP connections from This is the IP address range that will be allowed to connect to this instance using the Remote Desktop Protocol. The format for this field is IP Address/Mask. Example:
10.0.0.1/32- This is the public IP address which can be found by searching for "what is my ip address" on the web. The mask determines the number of IP addresses to include.
- A mask of 32 is a single IP address.
- Use a CIDR calculator if you need a range of more than one IP addresses.
- You may need to contact your IT administrator to determine which address is appropriate.
SSH Key Pair The name of an existing EC2 KeyPair to allow SSH access to the instance. See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html for details on creating these. Example: my-keypair
Username Enter a username you would like to use to connect to the virtual machine in the cloud using remote desktop. Password Enter a password you would like to use to connect to the virtual machine in the cloud using remote desktop. Confirm Password Retype the password to confirm. VPC ID of an existing VPC in which to deploy this stack Subnet Select a subnet within the chosen VPC License Manager (Optional) Enter the license manager hostname for in the form @. If not specified, online licensing is used. If specified, the license manager must be accessible from the specified VPC and subnets Note: If you chose to associate an IAM role above you'll need to acknowledge that it may create IAM resources in the Capabilities before creating the stack.
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Click the Create Stack button. The CloudFormation service will start creating the resources for the stack.
After clicking Create you will be taken to the Stack Detail page for your stack. Wait for the Status to reach CREATE_COMPLETE. This may take up to 10 minutes.
- Expand the Outputs section in the the Stack Detail page.
- Look for the key named
RDPConnectionand copy the corresponding public DNS name listed under value. For example: ec2-11-222-33-44.compute-1.amazonaws.com - Launch any remote desktop client, paste the public DNS name in the appropriate field, and connect. On the Windows Remote Desktop Client you need to paste the public DNS name in the Computer field and click Connect.
- In the login screen that's displayed, use the username and password you specified while setting up the stack in Step 2.
Double-click the MATLAB icon on the virtual machine desktop to launch MATLAB. The first time you start MATLAB you will need to activate it. By default you will be asked to use your MathWorks Account to activate MATLAB. For other ways to activate MATLAB, see Configure MATLAB Licensing on the Cloud.
Note:It may take a few minutes for activation to complete and MATLAB to start. You will experience this delay only the first time you start MATLAB.
Once you have finished using your stack, it is recommended that you delete all resources to avoid incurring further cost. To delete the stack, do the following:
- Log in to the AWS Console.
- Go to the AWS CloudFormation page and select the stack you created.
- Click the Actions button and click Delete Stack from the menu that appears.
| Release | Region | Ubuntu 16.04 VM |
|---|---|---|
| MATLAB R2018b | us-east-1 | |
| MATLAB R2018a | us-east-1 | |
All your files and changes are stored locally on the virtual machine. They will persist until you either terminate the virtual machine instance or delete the stack. Stopping the instance does not destroy the data on the instance. If you want your changes to persist outside the stack or before you terminate an instance you’ll need to:
- copy your files to another location (Example: S3 or Mount an Amazon EBS volume and create a snapshot), or
- create an image of the virtual machine.
You may want to shutdown the instance when you aren’t using it to save some money (you only pay for the storage used by the virtual machine when it is stopped). To shutdown an EC2 instance, locate it in the AWS web console, select the instance and choose “Instance State/Stop” from the “Actions” menu. You can restart it from the same menu. Any files or changes made to the virtual machine will persist when shutting down and will be there when you restart. A side-effect of shutting down the virtual machine and restarting is that the public IP address and DNS name may change. Inspecting the EC2 instance in the AWS console will reveal the new IP address and DNS name.
To avoid having to change the IP address between restarts you can establish a static IP using AWS Elastic IP Address. For more information, see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/elastic-ip-addresses-eip.html.
To save a VM image, locate the EC2 Instance in the AWS web console and from the "Actions" menu select the instance and choose “Image/Create Image”.
You can customize a VM image by launching the reference architecture, applying any changes you want to the EC2 Instance such as installing additional software, drivers and files and then saving an image of that instance using the AWS Console. For more information, see How Do I save a VM image?. When creating a stack, replace the AMI ID in the CloudFormation template with the AMI ID of your custom image.
The VM image uses MathWorks Hosted License Manager by default. For information on using other license managers, see Configure MATLAB Licensing on the Cloud.
In the templates folder of this repository you will find an example template for launching the reference architecture within an existing VPC and subnet. Edit the template to deploy this reference architecure to an existing VPC.
Deploying this reference architecture sets up a single AWS EC2 instance containing Linux and MATLAB, a private VPC with an internet gateway, a private subnet and a security group that opens the appropriate ports for SSH and RDP access.
To make deployment easy we have prepared an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) running Ubuntu 16.04 with pre-installed drivers. The AMI contains the following software:
- MATLAB, Simulink, Toolboxes, and support for GPUs.
- Add-Ons: Neural Network Toolbox Model for AlexNet Network, Neural Network Toolbox Model for GoogLeNet Network, and Neural Network Toolbox(TM) Model for ResNet-50 Network
The following resources will be created as part of the CloudFormation Stack.
- Security Group for SSH and RDP access
- EC2 Instance