Virtual Lab Issues

[Liz373]

My virtual lab did not build for me last night.  I opened a ticket with SAS, the response I received was that none of my time had been docked, but I don't know if my virtual machine is working if I try to reserve again. 

Issue is: 7612820985

It has been at least 30 days since I logged into the Virtual Machine, so it may be related to that. 

Please advise.  I need to be able to use the Virtual Machine this weekend and next week.

Thank you,

Liz

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi, Liz:

  It looks like you've already logged a ticket with the Virtual Lab support team. You should hear back from them within 24 hours.

  In general, I do have some comments to make about using the Virtual Lab, even though I'm not sure what course you're working in. It makes a difference what class you're taking and what Virtual Lab you're using. In many cases, if you haven't used your image in quite a while, the instructors usually recommend starting from a FRESH image when you make your Virtual Lab reservation.

  When you use the Virtual Lab Reservation System, there are 2 kinds of reservation you can make -- Reserve Now or Reserve Later. The issue with the Reserve Now is that you don't get an immediate entry into the Virtual Lab. The "Reserve Now" type of reservation just means that you are asking Amazon, right now, to go retrieve the Virtual Lab image for your class. It will ALWAYS take 35-45 minutes for your reservation to start. The messages in the reservation window will change during the time you're waiting.

  One of the other things to note about the Virtual Lab is that most of the images have a timeout of 30 minutes. So if you do enter a reservation and then let it sit idle while you might be reading (if you're in a self-study class) or listening to a lecture (if you're in a class that has recorded lectures) -- you might let it sit idle too long and the connection might get broken.

We recommend making a reservation for LONGER than you think you'll need. Then, when you explicitly log out of the Virtual Lab image, you will have the option to End Reservation or End Reservation and Save Image. When you end the reservation, any unused hours are returned back to your allotment.

Here is a YouTube video http://youtu.be/YwNKTNgfWn4?hd=1 that shows the process of making 2 different reservations -- an ad-hoc or Reserve Now type of reservation and a Reserve Later or future type of reservation.

The video shows how I made the immediate or Reserve Now reservation. I started the process at 5:27 Central time and my Virtual Lab was ready for me at 6:07 Central time. The start up time did not come out of my time allotment. Only the time between when the reservation was ready for me and when I logged out was charged against my allotment of time.

Then, at approximately 6:11 pm, I made a future reservation, or Reserve Later reservation for the Virtual Lab to be ready at exactly 7:30 pm Central time. I restarted the video at 7:29 pm Central time when my reservation was ready for me to launch the Virtual Lab.

If you have been clicking "Reserve Now" and perhaps missing the Virtual Lab is ready message, you might not realize that the Virtual Lab was ready for you at the times indicated on our reservation report. However, now that I have demonstrated the process of how to make both types of reservation and how to end and cancel the reservation, I am hoping that the video will give you some idea of how to work with Virtual Lab reservations in the future.

In addition, here are some Community Forum postings on the best use of Virtual Lab time: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Academy-for-Data-Science/Regarding-Best-use-of-Virtual-Lab-time/m... and https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Academy-for-Data-Science/SAS-Virtual-Lab-Strategy/m-p/425931/high... and https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Academy-for-Data-Science/Virtual-Lab-recommendations/m-p/491561/h... .

  I am sure you'll hear from the Virtual Lab team in response to your support ticket. Meanwhile, I hope some of these suggestions and the video help, too.

Cynthia

[Liz373 · Accepted solution]

Hello, Yes, I got resolution with a different Support Tech than the one who initially picked up my ticket. 

I've had my image purged again and will start fresh with my next reservation.

I reserved the slot ahead of time and it was not ready at my reserved time.  I've had this issue before and was told that the machine can take up to 45 minutes to build (even when reserved ahead of time). 

I've had the machine start up a reservation early in several previous instances, which I've documented with you.  So, yesterday, for my reservation set to begin at 8:30 p.m., I was logged in at 8:00, in case it started early.  At 9:30 p.m. is when I created the ticket, because that was beyond the 45 minute window).  I don't think the machine ever came up based on other steps I took today (after the first tech responder didn't resolve the issue). 

This response is more for documentation and to let you know that the machine isn't behaving in the way you have outlined below.  At this point in time, I should be able to reserve and use the virtual machine.  I'm going to attempt that sometime this weekend, so fingers crossed that it will work.

Thank you,

Liz