Evaluating virtual hosted desktops for graphics-intensive astronomy

TL;DR

This study evaluates the viability of virtual hosted desktops with GPU acceleration for astronomy visualization, comparing performance, user experience, and cost-effectiveness against traditional laptops.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that virtual desktops can outperform laptops in visualization tasks, offering a flexible and potentially more cost-effective solution for astronomers.

Findings

Virtual desktops can offer better user experience than laptops.

Benchmarks may not fully predict visualization performance.

Virtual desktops are flexible and cost-effective for astronomy visualization.

Abstract

Visualisation of data is critical to understanding astronomical phenomena. Today, many instruments produce datasets that are too big to be downloaded to a local computer, yet many of the visualisation tools used by astronomers are deployed only on desktop computers. Cloud computing is increasingly used to provide a computation and simulation platform in astronomy, but it also offers great potential as a visualisation platform. Virtual hosted desktops, with graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration, allow interactive, graphics-intensive desktop applications to operate co-located with astronomy datasets stored in remote data centres. By combining benchmarking and user experience testing, with a cohort of 20 astronomers, we investigate the viability of replacing physical desktop computers with virtual hosted desktops. In our work, we compare two Apple MacBook computers (one old and one new, representing hardware and opposite ends of the useful lifetime) with two virtual hosted desktops: one commercial (Amazon Web Services) and one in a private research cloud (the Australian Nectar Research Cloud). For two-dimensional image-based tasks and graphics-intensive three-dimensional operations -- typical of astronomy visualisation workflows -- we found that benchmarks do not necessarily provide the best indication of performance. When compared to typical laptop computers, virtual hosted desktops can provide a better user experience, even with lower performing graphics cards. We also found that virtual hosted desktops are equally simple to use, provide greater flexibility in choice of configuration, and may actually be a more cost-effective option for typical usage profiles.