Step 4: Build a PhotoMesh Project

This step outlines the workflow for building a PhotoMesh project. The option to run the entire PhotoMesh production with only cloud resources is the main workflow discussed above, and then in "Building a PhotoMesh Project Using the Master Instance" below. It is also possible to apply a hybrid cloud architecture that mixes cloud and on-premises computing power and storage solutions. This option is covered in "Creating an IAM User for Running PhotoMesh Project Using an On-Premises Master" and "Building a PhotoMesh Project Using an On-Premises Master and Storage".

There are a number of variables involved in the selection of fuser instances to process a build:

§  CPU/GPU – The hardware of the host computer used for your instance determines its compute, memory, storage, and graphic capabilities. GPU-based instances provide access to NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate processing. The need for GPUs is generally determined based on build step. See the table below.

§  Price/Performance – Optimized balance between machine price and its computing power. See here for more information: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/. See the table below for Skyline recommendations (based on our experience in the US East – N. Virginia region).

§  Availability Zones-Subnets – The availability of the required number of instances and their price should be considered when selecting an availability zone. Since you are also charged for data transfer from one availability zone to another, if you require many fusers, it is recommended to launch the master in an availability zone with good spot availability to avoid significant cross-availability zone charges. A subnet must be created for each availability zone. For more information, consult the Amazon EC2 console as described below.

§  onDemand/ Spot – onDemand instances provide guaranteed compute resources, while spot instances are dependent on the availability of unused instances: spot instances will only be launched if an instance is available and instance use may be interrupted unexpectedly if capacity is no longer available. onDemand instances also have a static price, while spot instance price varies based on demand. For more information see Amazon EC2 Using Spot Instances in Amazon’s AWS documentation.

Analyzing the price history of spot instances in Amazon EC2 console's Pricing History can help you determine availability of different spot instance types in different availability zones. Price is generally determined by the law of supply and demand, so if the price for a particular instance type is low in a specific zone, this usually indicates higher availability of spot instances of that type in the zone. No price is listed for a particular zone if there are no spot instances of that specific machine type in this zone.

See the chart below for our recommendations for each PhotoMesh step.