Running R in the Cloud

Chris Bail, PhD
Department of Sociology Duke University

Load R Studio in your Web Browser!

Why?

• 100+ times the computing power
• Cheaper than buying a faster machine
• Ability to load multiple R sessions at once, or “parallelize” your code
• Access your R code/data from anywhere
• TOPIC MODELING REQUIRES SIGNIFICANT COMPUTING RESOURCES!

Why?

-Possible downsides are: a) may not be safe for sensitive data; and b) you have to pay for the time you use… but some are free and even the most expensive are not too costly (e.g. ~$5/hour)

First, you need to create an account

Next, load an RStudio “Amazon Machine Image” (AMI)

This will redirect you to this page where you can choose how much power you want:

Configure your security group to allow incoming HTTP traffic from Port 80

Create a Key Pair (security measure)

Once you launch:

The EC2 Console

Cut and paste the “Public DNS” address into your browser

Log in: By Default the user name and password are both set to “rstudio”

All done!

Change your password!

Proceed with caution when loading sensitive data into the cloud!

Always “Shut down your instances,” OR YOU MAY RUN UP A BIG BILL!!!