Desktops in the Cloud

Cloud computing has become very popular recently. Part of the reason for this popularity is that it provides great flexibility allowing complete control of the computing environment. In addition the environment can be copied, backed up, created and recreated in an automated way. In these lessons we will start you on the path towards making use of the great flexibility and power of cloud computing.

The cloud can offer greater flexibility and access to hardware beyond that available on your laptop or desktop. However, it may still be useful to interact with it as if it were your local laptop using a graphical user interface (GUI) desktop. In this workshop will will install a GUI desktop on a remote virtual machine and connect to it from our laptop allowing us to use this remote desktop almost as if it were our local machine.

Prerequisites

• Make sure you have performed the required setup before the workshop begins.
• You will need to have your own laptop or desktop on which you can install the required software (see the setup for more details).
• Students should be comfortable working with computer file systems. They should know how to create and delete directories and files on their own personal computer.
• Software Carpentry’s Unix Shell, or similar experience is required.
• Our Introduction to Cloud workshop or similar experience is required.