In an effort to streamline IT and informatics resources being used as part of various research projects the Cancer Imaging Program has deployed a cloud infrastructure on Amazon EC2.  The following instructions summarize how to connect to your cloud computer once you've been assigned one as part of the CIP TCGA Radiology Initiative.

Using your Amazon Cloud Computer for TCGA Research

1. Save your Remote Desktop file (provided by the CIP Informatics team) to the desktop on any computer which you would like to read cases from. You can then connect to your personalized Cloud Computer by double clicking the icon from your desktop.

2. Check the box at the bottom to skip this in the future, then click "Connect".

3. Check the box at the bottom to skip this in the future, then click "Yes".

4. Once you connect to the Cloud Computer you need to select the Administrator user to log in.

5. Type in the password. (provided to you by the CIP Informatics team)

Depending on your operating system you may see the following instead. Leave the user name as Administrator and leave the Domain field empty.  You can also save your password so you don't have to type it each time you log in by selecting the checkbox near the bottom of the prompt.

Windows 7

Mac OS X

6. Once you've logged in you can open up Clearcanvas to read cases or Firefox if you want to check that your data has been successfully transmitted to our servers.

7. When you're finished simply click the "X" icon as shown below. This will disconnect you from your Cloud Computer. Similarly you can click the "_" icon to minimize the Cloud Computer if you need to do something on your normal computer, but plan to resume reading cases soon after.

Troubleshooting:

1. Cannot connect to your cloud computer

Some institutions block the outgoing port utilized for Remote Desktop connections (port 3389).  If you get an error immediately upon trying to connect indicating that the remote computer cannot be reached this may be your issue.  You will see an error similar to this:

To confirm this problem you can go to http://www.firebind.com/clients/web/.  Once there, on the right half of the screen there is a search box titled TCP Ports.  Type in 3389 and hit "Start Test".  Then check the results to see if there are any errors.  (No login is necessary; you can ignore the left side of the page)  If your result shows that the port is blocked you will need to contact your IT staff for assistance unblocking this port, or you can try using the software from another location.

2. Login/Password stored incorrectly

If you save your login credentials with an incorrect user name or password it cancause an instant error message to occur every time you try to connect to your cloud computer.

To resolve this issue you can right click the shortcut on your computer and choose "Edit".  When the following screen is prevented you can either edit your credentials or check the box to always ask for credentials.