Administering the eLab

This guide is for users with the eLab administrator role, who manage desktop capacity and images from the portal's admin page. (Account administration — creating users, issuing temporary passwords, resetting a lost authenticator — is done by your platform operator; what users experience is described in the platform's Account Help.)

Warming capacity for a class or workshop

Desktops normally provision on demand: a CPU desktop in a couple of minutes, a GPU desktop in around ten from cold. For a scheduled session with many participants, warm the pool in advance from the admin page. Two controls exist per desktop type (CPU and GPU):

• Held desktops — a fixed floor of capacity kept running with the desktop image ready. Use this to guarantee a class-sized block of instant starts.
• Instant-launch buffer — a self-refilling headroom of prepared sessions: each launch consumes one and the buffer replaces it in the background, so a steady stream of users keeps getting fast starts.

Both are capped at configured maximums (GPU capacity is expensive), and held capacity bills while it is held whether or not anyone connects — warm ahead of a session, and return the pools to zero afterwards.

Choosing desktop images

Where more than one desktop image is offered for a pool (for example a full and a lite CPU image, or PyTorch and TensorFlow GPU images), the admin page selects which image new launches use. Pick the image before warming capacity — warmed sessions are prepared with the selected image.

Budgets

Desktop hours draw down the project budget automatically; users see their remaining hours in the portal, and new desktops stop launching when the budget is exhausted. Budget levels are set by your operator as part of the project's configuration — raise changes through them.

Reviewer and account roles

Airlock reviewers and administrators are designated by role membership, managed by your platform operator — see Reviewing Transfer Requests for what reviewers do.