New GPU Optimized EC2 G2 Instance, the G2.8xlarge

New GPU Optimized EC2 G2 Instance, the G2.8xlarge(aws.amazon.com)

7 points by jamiis 11 years ago | 9 comments

michaelt 11 years ago |

It would be nice if there was an AMI for the latest LTS version of Ubuntu with the CUDA drivers installed and working.

Last time I tried some CUDA work on AWS I spent the best part of a day trying to just get the drivers set up right for a basic test app to work on 14.04 - eventually I gave up and went back to 12.04 which, in 2015, didn't give me much confidence in CUDA as something I can expect decent support for.

alepper 11 years ago | |

I have this kicking around from some experiments a month or two ago:

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-image-extra-virtual
    sudo reboot
    echo options nouveau modeset=0 | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf
    cat > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
    blacklist nouveau
    blacklist lbm-nouveau
    options nouveau modeset=0
    alias nouveau off
    alias lbm-nouveau off
    <Ctrl+D>
    sudo update-initramfs -u
    sudo reboot
    sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
    wget http://uk.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/346.35/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run
    chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run
    sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run
    nvidia-smi -q | less

This is obviously not production-ready, and is heavily cribbed from online (I couldn't quickly re-find where) but is good enough if you just want to play.

EDIT: I think this was the original: http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2015/01/install-nvidia-3...

moonbug 11 years ago | |

Canonical's packaging of the Nvidia drivers is risible. It really is easier just to pull the driver and CUDA installers from the nv site and install manually. Or use the Amazon Linux AMIs which just DTRT.

msoad 11 years ago | |

Yes, considering how expensive(in terms of price per hour) it is to just manually install drivers on those machines.

moonbug 11 years ago |

4 of the current Grid K520 GPUs in a single instance, at 4x the price (on-demand and spot) of the of the g2.2xlarge. Shame they're not also rolling out a Maxwell hardware-backed instance type.

Sanddancer 11 years ago | |

They're not even Grid K520s, they're K5000s. They've only got 4 gigs of RAM each, instead of the 5 gigs for teslas or 8 gigs for the K520s. This sounds a lot like they're trying to pull a little bit more value out of their current gpgpu rigs as they slide further and further into obsolescence.

Edit:

Looking again at the pricing and specs, it looks like they're just letting you have a full gpgpu box, instead of the multi-tenant box they previously offered where you share with three other people.

moonbug 11 years ago | | |

Well, the K520 is a single AIB with two discrete GPUs on it, each being a GK104 with 4GB (which seems to match the spec of the K5000). A g2.2x instance has a single GPU - ie half a K520 - assigned to it.

Your claim surprised me enough to stand an instance up and take a look for myself. Sure enough, they report having 4 K520 devices.

sparaker 11 years ago |

This is very good addition. Thanks a lot.

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-image-extra-virtual sudo reboot echo options nouveau modeset=0 | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf cat > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf blacklist nouveau blacklist lbm-nouveau options nouveau modeset=0 alias nouveau off alias lbm-nouveau off <Ctrl+D> sudo update-initramfs -u sudo reboot sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) wget http://uk.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/346.35/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run nvidia-smi -q | less