Frequently Asked Questions

These are some frequently asked questions that might solve your doubts when using EC3.

General FAQs

What Cloud Providers are supported by EC3 (Elastic Cloud Computing Cluster)?

Currently, EC3 supports OpenNebula, Amazon EC2, OpenStack, OCCI, LibCloud, Docker, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Engine and LibVirt. All providers and interfaces are supported by the CLI interface. However, from the EC3aaS interface, only support for Amazon EC2, Openstack, OpenNebula and EGI FedCloud is provided. More providers will be added soon, stay tunned!

What Local Resource Management Systems (LRMS) are supported by EC3?

Currently, EC3 supports SLURM, Torque, Apache Mesos, SGE, HTCondor and Kubernetes.

Is it necessary to indicate a LRMS recipe in the deployment?

Yes, it is mandatory, because the cluster needs to have an LRMS system installed. This is why the LRMS recipes are considered main recipes, needed to perform a deployment with EC3.

Is it secure to provide my credentials to EC3?

The user credentials that you specify are only employed to provision the resources (Virtual Machines, security groups, keypairs, etc.) on your behalf. No other resources will be accessed/deleted. However, if you are concerned about specifying your credentials to EC3, note that you can (and should) create an additional set of credentials, perhaps with limited privileges, so that EC3 can access the Cloud on your behalf. In particular, if you are using Amazon Web Services, we suggest you use the Identity and Access Management (IAM) service to create a user with a new set of credentials. This way, you can rest assured that these credentials can be cancelled at anytime.

Can I configure different software packages than the ones provided with EC3 in my cluster?

Yes, you can configure them by using the EC3 CLI interface. Thus, you will need to provide a valid Ansible recipe to automatically install the dependence. You can also contact us by using the contact section, and we would try to add the software package you need.

Why am I experimenting problems with Centos 6 when trying to deploy a Mesos cluster?

Because the recipe of Mesos provided with EC3 is optimized for Centos 7 as well as Ubuntu 14.04. If you want to deploy a Mesos cluster, we encourage you to use one of each operative systems.

Which is the best combination to deploy a Galaxy cluster?

The best configuration for a elastic Galaxy cluster is to select Torque as a LRMS and install the NFS package. Support for Galaxy in SGE is not provided. Moreover, we have detected problems when using Galaxy with SLURM. So, we encourage you to use Torque and NFS in the EC3aaS and also with the EC3 CLI.

EC3aaS Webpage

Is my cluster ready when I receive its IP using the EC3aaS webpage?

Probably not, because the process of configuring the cluster is a batch process that takes several minutes, depending on the chosen configuration. However, you are allowed to log in the front-end machine of the cluster since the moment it is deployed. To know if the cluster is configured, you can use the command is_cluster_ready. It will check if the cluster has been configured or if the configuration process is still in progress. If the command is_cluster_ready is not recognised, wait a few seconds and try again, because this command is also installed in the configuration process.

Why can’t I deploy an hybrid cluster using the EC3aaS webpage?

Because no support is provided yet by the EC3aaS service. If you want to deploy a hybrid cluster, we encourage you to use the CLI interface.

Why can I only access to Amazon EC2, Openstack, OpenNebula and EGI FedCloud Cloud providers while other Cloud providers are supported by EC3?

Because no support is provided yet by the EC3aaS service. If you want to use another supported Cloud provider, like Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Engine, we encourage you to use the CLI interface.

What is the correct format for the “endpoint” in the OpenNebula and Openstack wizards?

The user needs to provide EC3 the endpoint of the on-premises Cloud provider. The correct format is name_of_the_server:port. For example, for Openstack ostserver:5000, or for OpenNebula oneserver:2633. The same format is employed in the authorization file required to use the CLI interface of EC3.

Why am I receiving this error “InvalidParameterCombination - Non-Windows instances with a virtualization type of ‘hvm’ are currently not supported for this instance type” when I deploy a cluster in Amazon EC2?

This error is shown by the Cloud provider, because the instance type and the Amazon Machine Image selected are incompatible. The Linux AMI with HVM virtualization cannot be used to launch a non-cluster compute instance. Select another AMI with a virtualization type of paravirtual and try again.

Why am I receiving this error “VPCResourceNotSpecified - The specified instance type can only be used in a VPC. A subnet ID or network interface ID is required to carry out the request.” when I deploy a cluster in Amazon EC2?

This error is shown by the Cloud provider, because the instance type selected can only be used in a VPC. To use a VPC, please, employ the CLI interface of EC3. You can specify the name of an existent VPC in the RADL file. More info about Amazon VPC.

Why can’t I download the private key of my cluster?

If you are experimenting problems downloading the private key of your cluster (deployed in Amazon EC2), please, try with another browser. The website is currently optimized for Google Chrome.

Where can I get the endpoint and VMI identifier for the EGI FedCloud wizard?

In the EGI FedCloud case, the endpoint and VMI identifier can be obtained from the AppDB portal. In the cloud marketplace select the desired VMI then select the site to launch it (considering your VO) and click the “get IDs” button. The field “Site endpoint” shows the value of the endpoint to specify in the wizard (without a “/” character after the port) and the value after the “#” char of the OCCI ID field the VMI Indentifier. Finally the value after the “#” char of the Template ID field shows the type of the instance type (In some OpenStack sites you must replace the “.” char with a “-”, e.g. m1.small to m1-small).

Can I configure software packages in my cluster that are not available in the wizard?

You can configure them by using the EC3 CLI interface. Thus, you will need to provide a valid Ansible recipe to automatically install the dependence. You can also contact us by using the contact section, and we would try to add the software package you need.

What is the OSCAR option that appears as a LRMS?

In OpenNebula and EGI Fedcloud there is an option to deploy as an LRMS the OSCAR (Open Source Serverless Computing for Data-Processing Applications ) framework, that is an open-source platform to support the Functions as a Service (FaaS) computing model for file-processing applications. This option deploys a Kubernetes cluster with the OSCAR framework and all its dependences.