Amazon DCV

Deliver high-performance remote desktop and application streaming

Amazon DCV is a high-performance remote display protocol that provides customers with a secure way to deliver remote desktops and application streaming from any cloud or data center to any device, over varying network conditions. With Amazon DCV and Amazon EC2, customers can run graphics-intensive applications remotely on EC2 instances, and stream their user interface to simpler client machines, eliminating the need for expensive dedicated workstations. Customers across a broad range of HPC workloads use Amazon DCV for their remote visualization requirements. The Amazon DCV streaming protocol is also utilized by popular services, like Amazon Appstream 2.0, AWS Nimble Studio, and AWS RoboMaker.

There is no additional charge to use Amazon DCV on Amazon EC2. You pay only for the EC2 resources you use to run and store your workloads.

Benefits

High Performance

With Amazon DCV, you do not need to choose between responsiveness and image quality. The bandwidth-adaptive streaming protocol allows Amazon DCV to provide near real-time responsiveness for your applications without compromising on the accuracy of the image.

Optimized Costs

Highly responsive streaming experience allows customers to run graphics-intensive applications remotely without the need for expensive dedicated workstations, or transferring large amounts of data from the cloud to client machines. On Linux systems, Amazon DCV also enables multiple sessions to share a single GPU, helping customers to save further on server infrastructure costs.

Flexible Deployments

Multi-OS compatibility and browser based access provides service builders a stable and flexible protocol for streaming applications with support for both cloud and on-premises usage.

Comprehensive Security

Amazon DCV streams pixels and not geometries to ensure customer data privacy. In addition, Amazon DCV secures both pixels and end-user inputs using TLS protocol to ensure security of customer data.

Features

Amazon DCV supports both Windows and Linux remote environments and offers native clients for Windows, Linux, and MacOS as well as an HTML5 client for web browser access. Native clients can support 4K resolution, multiple monitors, and features such as stylus/touch support, USB devices, multi-channel audio, smart cards, and file redirection.

DCV Session Manager makes it easy to programmatically create and manage the lifecycle of Amazon DCV sessions across a fleet of servers. Amazon DCV web client SDK enables developers to build customized Amazon DCV web browser client applications.

Getting Started with DCV on Amazon EC2

Deploy:

1. Create and activate your AWS account.

2. Sign in to your AWS Management Console.

3.  Select the appropriate Amazon DCV AMI from the AWS Marketplace or download and install the appropriate Amazon DCV server on your EC2 instance and generate an AMI with your application stack.

4. Deploy EC2 instances with Amazon DCV server installed after making sure your security group inbound rules allow traffic on port 8443.

Connect:

5. Download and install the appropriate Amazon DCV native client on your device. 

6. Connect to your remote machine with the Amazon DCV native client or web client using https://<public_dns>:8443.

Stream:

7. Stream your graphics applications across devices using AmazonDCV.

Use cases

3D Graphics Visualization

HPC workloads across industry verticals such as Oil & Gas, Life Sciences, and Design & Engineering are getting increasingly complex and consume massive amounts of data. Amazon DCV's streaming protocol eliminates the need to ship output files to client devices and provides a smooth and bandwidth-efficient experience to stream HPC 3D graphics remotely.

Browser-based Access to Applications

Amazon DCV's Web Client works across any HTML5 browser and combines a responsive streaming experience with portability across mobile devices. The Web Client also reduces IT operational load by eliminating the need to manage native clients without compromising on streaming performance. You can build your own DCV Web Client using the Amazon DCV Web Client SDK.

Custom Remote Applications

Custom remote applications and managed services can benefit from the ease of streaming protocol integration that Amazon DCV provides. Amazon DCV secures both pixels and end-user inputs using end-to-end AES-256 encryption with native clients supporting up to 4 monitors at 4K resolution each.

Pricing

Amazon EC2:
There is no additional cost for using Amazon DCV on AWS. Customers pay only for the EC2 resources that they use.
 
Third Party Cloud and On-Premises:
For more details on Amazon DCV licensing and pricing, please contact DCV distributors or resellers in your region here.

Resources

Amazon DCV Demos

From molecular dynamics, computational fluid dynamics, seismic analysis, to video game development, watch these videos to see examples of different applications streamed remotely via Amazon DCV.

Remote Visualization Demo for HPC using Amazon DCV on AWS
What's New in DCV 2021.0
Supercomputing visualization for the most demanding gamers

Customers

Amazon DCV Documentation
Amazon DCV user forum
Amazon DCV Web Client SDK

Blogs

Creating a feature film with DaVinci Resolve on AWS
 
 
Deep dive on the new Amazon EC2 G4ad instances
 
 
AWS ParallelCluster post-install: EnginFrame and DCV Session Manager Broker
 
 

Read more Amazon DCV AWS blogs here. To learn about the latest Amazon DCV developments, read the AWS What's New posts here.

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