Nectar Applications - R-Studio

NeCTAR have packaged R-Studio into the Application Catalogue so you can create your own instance of R-Studio running in the Nectar Research cloud.

Although not required, you can provide a Persistent Volume when creating the application. This volume will then be used for all user data within the environment. The advantages of this are that the volume storage size can be much larger than what is provided within the application instance, and as the data is stored externally, so the application can be destroyed and recreated and the data can be plugged back in. 

What this means in practise is you can delete an existing R-Studio application, and the associated volume will not be deleted. You can then re-launch a new R-Studio application, provide the same username and password, and choose this volume again, and your files and settings contained on the volume will migrate across to the new instance. 

For more information, see the Persistent Volume Storage section of the Introduction to Cloud Storage article. Please note that the application must use the same Availability Zone as the persistent volume you use. 

While it's possible to take snapshots of an R-Studio application, it's not recommended, particularly if you have a persistent volume attached as described above. 

Now it's time to create the application. Click the Applications tab, then the Applications sub-tab. If you don't immediately see R-Studio, just type it into the search field on the right. Once you've found it, click Quick Deploy.

Choose your desired Instance Flavor, Key pair and the Availability Zone which needs to match with the volume we created earlier. Click Next to continue.

In this step, you can choose an optional host name and DNS zone name for your instance. If you choose a DNS zone at this stage, we will automatically create a DNS entry for you and provision a HTTPS security certificate for your instance. More information about Nectar's DNS service can be found here. 

Select your volume, if required. Click Next to continue.

In this step, you should provide your desired Username and Password for R-Studio. You will be prompted for these later once the application has been deployed. Click Next to continue.

The last step allows you to provide a name. You can keep the default, R-Studio, or supply your own. Click Next to continue. You will then be taken to the Application Environments screen. You'll want to click the Deploy This Environment button to kick off the deployment.

The application is now being deployed. This usually takes around 5 to 10 minutes to complete the setup process.

R-Studio is now deployed and ready. You should see the Last Operation message appear with the address of your R-Studio instance. You can click this link to get started.

Once you log in with the Username and Password you provided earlier, you will reach the landing page. You can launch R-Studio from here. We also provide a link to Shiny Server that has also been installed, and a link to access the instance desktop via browser.

R-Studio will require you to log in again with the Username and Password you provided earlier.

R-Studio is now available!

This application also offers access to R-Studio through Remote Desktop via X2Go. This might be especially useful for workloads that require visualisations that can't be handled from within the browser environment.

If you would like to use the Remote Desktop interface, you should install the X2Go client. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Once installed and running, you should click the Create Session button and provide the Host, Login and SSH keypair details. Session type should be XFCE.

Once you have created the session, once you connect, the XFCE graphical environment will appear, and you can launch R-Studio from the menu.

You can also access your R-Studio instance using SSH, with the username and key pair you provided earlier (please see above).