[StarCluster] questions related to matlab and windows on amaozn ec2

[Justin Riley]

Hi Abhijit,

> This is what i want to do:
> Setup matlab preferably with windows but linux is fine as well. 
> (amazon EC2 provides mostly windows 2003/08 server editions which are 
> pain to use..)

Do you mean parallel matlab or just individual matlab installations on 
each machine? I believe the setup and licensing is different in each 
case but I could be wrong. I haven't used matlab in years...

> How does licensing for matlab work on ec2? will jsut a plain install 
> on a machine and then creating ami and using those ami work with linux 
>  + matlab and windows + matlab?

Again I'm not an expert on matlab or its licensing but I imagine you 
will still need to have a valid license for each EC2 instance. In theory 
you should be able to create your own matlab AMI and as long as you 
configure each instance you launch with a valid license after they come 
up (maybe through a StarCluster plugin?) it should work. I'd recommend 
reading the following whitepaper for the licensing requirements and 
installation details:

http://www.mathworks.com/programs/techkits/ec2_paper.html

> Any suggestions for tools to do intereaction with matlab nodes ?

Well if you prefer using NumPy/Python you can give these a try (I 
haven't used them personally):

1. http://mlabwrap.sourceforge.net/

2. http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pymatlab

> Does starcluster have windows support? ( i didnt find it.. I have been 
> using it with ubuntu for 6 months now)

Not at this time.

~Justin