In the applications module in this tutorial the interactive applications were mentioned as available, but there are some nuances to getting them started and working for your use case. On this module we will go over getting the interactive desktop, MATLAB, and Paraview interactive applications working. Jupyter Notebooks will be covered in another tutorial.

Interactive Desktop

Open OnDemand’s interactive desktop application enables users to use the MedicineBow HPC system as if it were a regular desktop computer that many are used to rather than a command line interface (CLI). However, since MedicineBow is a Linux based system, so is the interactive desktop and may not be as familiar as a Windows or Mac desktop. On MedicineBow, the Xfce desktop environment is used to facilitate this functionality.

Before you use the interactive desktop be prepared that it will prompt you for:

Project/Account
Number of hours
Desktop Configuration for your CPU and RAM requirements
GPU requirements

Configuring the Desktop

In this simple example we configure the desktop with:

account
1 hour
1 cpu, 4GB
- There are more options in the dropdown
No GPU
- in the drop down the options are A30, L40s, and H100

Launching the Desktop

When launching the desktop, it will not open immediatley. What is happening is that the system is allocating the hardware needed and then submitting a job to a compute node to run.

Once it is ready, you will see a green bar that says it’s running.

To actually launch the desktop, you have to click the Launch button on the bottom of the box

Exploring the Desktop

Once launched, the desktop appears in the browser window, with familiar apps in the bottom menu bar like:

File browser
Internet
Terminal

Some GUI applications can be launched in this desktop or manage files, etc.

MATLAB

Launching MATLAB is as similar process, the options are a little different where version of the software is one of them and the CPU and RAM options can be manually selected instead of a drop down.

Parallel Computing in MATLAB

If you’ve used Matlab before, you’ll be familiar with the window you see after launching. However, In order to use the parallel functionality of MATLAB, you have to set your environment.

Also, be aware if you are running parallel, that by default, Matlab restricts you to 12 worker threads, so you’d need to override this if you needed by setting the poolobj = parapool (’local’, 24);

ParaView

Once again the process of launching the Paraview GUI is similar, but with different options:

Using Paraview

Once the application is launched, you will see the application running in your browser window.

Managing Interactive Sessions

It is a good practice to keep the number of interactive sessions you are working on in check. As each of these are using resources on MedicineBow, if you have many open sessions that are idle, you will be preventing other users from using them.

You can free up those resources by cancelling your sessions using the “Cancel” button