From a resource management standpoint, FPGA-accelerated instances are considered as Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and are connected to in the same way you connect to other ECS instances. Alibaba Cloud provides a variety of methods to connect to an ECS instance, including VNC, Workbench and third-party client tools. You can choose a method to connect to your instance based on the operating system of your instance, the operating system of your device, and the operations that you want to perform.
Connection methods
- Connection tools provided by Alibaba Cloud: You can log on to the ECS console to view the tools.
- Third-party client tools: To use a third-party client tool, you must install the tool on-premises.
| Connection tool | Connection method | |
|---|---|---|
| Connection tools provided by Alibaba Cloud | Workbench You can use Workbench to connect to instances in the ECS console. | |
| Session Manager Before you can use Session Manager, you must install a version of the Cloud Assistant client that supports Session Manager. |
| |
| Alibaba Cloud Client You must install Alibaba Cloud Client on-premises. | ||
| VNC You can use VNC to connect to instances in the ECS console. | ||
| Third-party client tools such as PuTTY, Xshell, and SecureCRT You must install the client tools on-premises. | ||
- All third-party client tools used to connect to instances require that instances to which you want to connect have public IP addresses or elastic IP addresses (EIPs).
- After a Windows instance is created, it takes 2 to 3 minutes to initialize the operating system. Do not restart the instance while it is being initialized. After a non-I/O optimized Windows instance is created, it takes 10 minutes to initialize the operating system. Do not connect to the instance while it is being initialized.
Comparison of connection tools
The following table compares the advantages of Workbench, VNC, Session Manager, Alibaba Cloud Client, and third-party client tools.
| Item | Workbench | Session management | Alibaba Cloud Client | VNC | Third-party client tool |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supported instance operating systems | Workbench can be used to connect to both Linux and Windows instances. | Session Manager can be used to connect to both Linux and Windows instances. | Alibaba Cloud Client can be used to connect to both Linux and Windows instances. | VNC can be used to connect to both Linux and Windows instances. | Typically, third-party client tools can be used to connect to Linux or Windows instances. |
| Allocation of Public IP addresses address or EIPs to instances | Optional. Workbench can be used to connect to instances with the private IP addresses of the instances. | Optional. Session Manager can be used to connect to instances with various credentials such as AccessKey pairs and Secure Token Service (STS) tokens. | Optional. Alibaba Cloud Client can be used to connect to instances with various credentials such as AccessKey pairs and STS tokens. | Optional. VNC can be used to troubleshoot network configuration exceptions, such as firewalls being enabled by mistake. | Required. |
| Enabling services such as SSH on Linux instances | Required. | Optional. Session management can be used to troubleshoot SSH service exceptions, such as SSHD being disabled. | Optional. Alibaba Cloud Client can be used to troubleshoot SSH service exceptions, such as SSHD being disabled. | Optional. VNC can be used to troubleshoot SSH service exceptions, such as SSHD being disabled. | Required. |
| Logons by using the ECS console | Supported. | Not supported. The Cloud Assistant client must be installed and the version of the client must support session management. | Not supported. Alibaba Cloud Client must be installed. | Supported. | Not supported. The local client must be installed. |
| Simultaneous logons by multiple operating system users to a single instance | Supported. | Supported. | Supported. | Not supported. | Depends on the client tool. |
| Ease of interaction | Workbench supports copying and pasting text. | Session management supports copying and pasting text. | Alibaba Cloud Client supports copying and pasting text. | Not supported. To copy or paste text, use the feature for copying long commands. | Depends on the client tool. |
| Visibility into Linux system file resources | Supported. | Not supported. | Not supported. | Not supported. | Depends on the client tool. |
| Permissions to control and modify hardware | Not supported. | Not supported. | Not supported. | Supported. VNC can be used to manage resources such as BIOS and troubleshoot exceptions such as system startup failures. | Not supported. |
| Configurability of terminal settings such as usernames, passwords, and keys | Supported, but depends on the capabilities that Workbench provides. | Supported, but depends on the capabilities that the client tool provides. | Supported, but depends on the capabilities that the client tool provides. | Not supported. | Supported, but depends on the capabilities that the client tool provides. |
| Security | Workbench provides access encryption. Workbench provides the screen recording feature that allows you to audit commands and operations. | Session Manager establishes persistent WebSocket connections based on the Web Socket Secure (WSS) protocol. The WSS protocol encrypts the persistent WebSocket connections by using the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol to ensure data security. | Alibaba Cloud Client can be used to connect to ECS instances and elastic container instances without the need to provide passwords or public IP addresses. | VNC does not provide access encryption. You can only set VNC passwords to ensure that secure VNC connections are established to instances. | This depends on the client tool. |