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Running the Client

There are two options you can choose from in order to run the Image Rendering sample:

  1. Run the client application. The RenderCmd client application uploads the input files to Windows Azure storage, submits the parametric sweep job, and downloads the outputted files from the storage. To use this technique refer to Tasks 1 and 4.
  2. Submit the parametric sweep job manually. This option requires manually uploading the input files to the storage, submitting the parametric sweep job in the HPC Job Scheduler, and then viewing the outputted images from the storage. To use this technique refer to Tasks 1, 2, and 3.

Task 1 – Verifying Cluster State

In this task, you will verify that the nodes in your cluster are online.

  1. Open the HPC 2008 R2 Cluster Manager application from Start | All Programs | Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 | HPC Cluster Manager.

  2. In the Cluster Manager application, enter the Node Management section and verify that the Windows Azure nodes in the cluster are online, as shown in Figure 3:

    Figure 3

    Verifying the State of the Windows Azure Nodes

Task 2 - Manually Uploading Instruction Files to the Blob Storage

In this task, you will upload the instruction files required by the parametric sweep application to a blob in your Windows Azure storage account.

Uploading, downloading, and browsing files in blobs is an easy task if you install one of the blob storage browsing applications, such as CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage, or the Azure Storage Explorer. The following steps are for the CloudBerry Explorer application; you can use the same techniques with Azure Storage Explorer, but the steps may differ.

  1. Download and install CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage.
  2. Open CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage from Start | All Programs | CloudBerryLab | CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage | CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage.

  3. Open the File menu and select Azure Blob Storage Accounts. The Account Registration dialog will appear, as shown in Figure 4:

    Figure 4

    The Account Registration dialog

  4. Click the Add button and input the display name of the storage account, the storage account name, and the account’s shared key (primary access key). Use the same storage account settings you used in Task 1 for the AzureBlobCopy project.
  5. Click the Test Connection button and wait for the approval message. Close the approval message, click OK to add the storage account, and then close the Azure Blob Storage Accounts dialog.
  6. You should now see your blob storage in the left pane of the application, and your machine (“My Computer”) in the right pane.

  7. Create a new container in the blob by clicking on the New Container button in the left pane, as shown in Figure 5:

    Figure 5

    Creating a new blob container

  8. In the Create New Container dialog, set the container name to input, select the Full public read access option from the Access control options as shown in Figure 6, and click OK.

    Figure 6

    The Create New Container dialog

    Note:
    If the container already exists, it is preferable that you delete it and create it again using the above settings.

  9. Locate the newly created container in the list of containers and double-click its name to see its contents (it should be empty for now).
  10. In the right pane, navigate to the labs folder, and locate the RenderMan\SampleInput folder.

  11. Select all the files (40 .zip files) from the SampleInput folder and click the Copy button. Click Yes in the confirmation message that appears, and then wait for the copy procedure to complete.

    Note:
    The content of the folder is about 76MB, so this may take a couple of minutes, depending on your network bandwidth.

  12. After the upload completes, close the CloudBerry Explorer application.

Task 3 – Submitting the Job Manually Through the HPC Job Scheduler

In this task, you will create a parametric sweep job for the image rendering application.

  1. In the Cluster Manager application, enter the Job Management section and click New Job… in the Actions pane as shown in Figure 7:

    Figure 7

    Create a New Job

  2. In the New Job dialog, set the Job name to Image Rendering, as shown in Figure 8:

    Figure 8

    Setting the name of the job

  3. Still in the New Job dialog, click the Edit Tasks option, click the arrow next to the Add button, and then click Parametric Sweep Task…, as shown in Figure 9:

    Figure 9

    New Parametric Sweep Task

  4. In the Parametric Sweep Task dialog, enter the following information and then click OK:

    1. Task name: ImageRendering
    2. Start value: 0
    3. End value: 39
    4. Command line: %CCP_PACKAGE_ROOT%\Aqsis\bin\run.cmd frame-*
    5. Working Directory: %CCP_PACKAGE_ROOT%

    Figure 10

    Setting the parametric sweep task details

  5. Click the ResourceSelection option, check the Run this job only on nodes that are members of all the following groups checkbox, and then add the AzureNodes group, as shown in Figure 11:

    Figure 11

    Selecting a node group for the job

  6. Click the Submit button to start the parametric sweep job.

  7. While the job is running, enter the Job Management section, select the Image Rendering job from the active jobs, and click on View Job… in the Actions pane, as shown in Figure 12:

    Figure 12

    View running job information

  8. The View Job dialog displays the current state of the job, as shown in Figure 13:

    Figure 13

    Running job’s state

  9. Click the Refresh button every couple of seconds to see the change in the number of finished tasks.
  10. After the job completes, open CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage from Start | All Programs | CloudBerryLab | CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage | CloudBerry Explorer for Azure Blob Storage.

  11. Use the CloudBerry Explorer to view the contents of the output blob container, as shown in Figure 14:

    Figure 14

    Viewing the contents of the output blob container

  12. Double-click any of the .tif files to view the rendered image.

Task 4 – Running the Client Application

In this task, you will run the client application that creates the parametric sweep job.

Note:
If you prefer to submit the job manually, you can skip this task

  1. Open the command prompt window from Start | All Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 | Visual Studio Tools | Visual Studio Command Prompt (2010).

  2. Navigate to the ImageRendering labs folder, and from there to Source\RenderCmd\bin\debug, and then run the following command to start the parametric sweep job:

    CMD

    RenderCmd ..\..\..\..\..\RenderMan\SampleInput

  3. While you wait for the application to finish rendering, you can inspect the status of the parametric sweep job using the HPC 2008 R2 Cluster Manager utility, as shown in Figure 15:

    Figure 15

    Status of the Parametric Sweep Rendering Job

  4. Wait a couple of minutes for the application to complete and then navigate to the RenderMan\SampleInput\output folder to inspect the rendered .tiff images.

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