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AWS free tier with PAT?

asked 6 years ago

Ruth Urban's avatar

updated 5 years ago

Amazon offers a free trial of AWS. Has anyone tried running the Parametric Analysis Tool with the free tier of EC2?

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@Ruth Urban As far as I can tell, not a whole lot of people are using the Algorithmic Analysis in PAT as the setup is a bit involved. You have to install openstudio-server on AWS, which is lacking in instructions. https://github.com/NREL/openstudio-st... You might want to try out @mdahlhausen's code that can run in just openstudio. https://github.com/UnmetHours/openstu... It doesn't have any of the fancy searching methods that PAT does, but it can run a bunch of simulations with different parameters automatically.

Mitchal Dichter's avatar Mitchal Dichter  ( 6 years ago )

"You have to install openstudio-server on AWS" -- no you don't. You just have to the point to the AMI in PAT, which already includes openstudio-server.

shorowit's avatar shorowit  ( 6 years ago )

@shorowit Could you please post a link to any sort of instructions detailing how to "You just have to the point to the AMI in PAT"? I thought the algorithmic analysis mode in PAT has to run on an external server because trying to "Run Locally" displays a warning "Algorithmic analyses cannot be run locally. Select 'Run on Cloud' from the dropdown above to run this analysis remotely."

Are you saying we just need to install PAT on an external server to use the algorithmic analysis mode of PAT from a local machine?

Mitchal Dichter's avatar Mitchal Dichter  ( 6 years ago )

@mldichter When you use Algorithmic mode, it is true that you cannot run the simulations locally. But when you specify in PAT to "Run on Cloud" and choose "Amazon Cloud" as the Remote Server Type, there are pre-packaged Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that you simply select from. Nothing more is needed. See this screenshot for an example.

shorowit's avatar shorowit  ( 6 years ago )

@shorowit I have a slightly different screen on PAT. https://drive.google.com/file/d/19kwp... The only other box present is "Existing Server URL" as opposed to all the dropdown menus in your screenshot. Are there any other instructions on how to setup?

Mitchal Dichter's avatar Mitchal Dichter  ( 6 years ago )

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answered 6 years ago

updated 6 years ago

Unfortunately the free tier on AWS no longer works with the latest versions of PAT. However, Amazon no longer charges by the hour, so choosing the cheapest avail AMI in the drop downs and choosing '0' workers will minimize cost for experimenting with PAT. Always remember to double check the EC2 dashboard that your instances are terminated when you are done so you dont get charged extra after you are done :)

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also, contrary to what was posted earlier, PAT has an active user base and is integral to several companies business models.

BrianLBall's avatar BrianLBall  ( 6 years ago )

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Asked: 6 years ago

Seen: 840 times

Last updated: Jan 09 '19