CAS Open Source Software

It is possible to run RStudio in Amazon's cloud (EC2), upload data and run some analysis. I wanted to upload a pdf with step-by-step instructions via screen shots, but this forum doesn't seem to allow me to do that. (If it does and you want to see it, let me know how. Thanks.) The "session" appeared to cost $0, and nothing required me to have Administrator rights.

Dan Murphy

I just created a running instance and installed some actuarial packages on it, like actuar, ChainLadder, and Brian's MRMR package. Currently it's running in a free (micro) instance, which only has 1GB of RAM. This wasn't enough to compile some of R's packages (such as dplyr) at reasonable speeds, so if we find this idea useful we should probably get some money for an upgrade. Still though, it's useful enough for some demos. Click here to use the instance (username "rstudio", password "cas open source" without the spaces), and see cloud for some more information about the instance.

Any comments? Feel free to use the log on the cloud page to make your own image and upgrade it. I can also give you root access to that image, but I wasn't sure about the security ramifications of posting my secret key publicly.

Just saw this on the SAS and R blog. It describes how to get going with Docker and RStudio server. Looks pretty easy and cheap. I think most companies could swing $5 per month to experiment with R. I'll have a go at it and see how well it works.