[R] client-server setup for R

[Liaw, Andy]

If I'm not mistaken, the problem of sharing applications on a Windows server
among several users is not particular to R, but applies generally to that
environment, and Reid's suggestion is the cheap(-est.?) way of getting
around it.  (Windows is simply not designed for that kind of usage, whereas
Linux, like Unix, _is_ designed for that.)  The problem is that it'd be
difficult to cut-and-paste graphics as you could on a Windows box (although
that might not be doable via remote desktop, either --- I don't know).

I routinely run upwards of 4 different, simultaneous R sessions on my 1.6GHz
P-M laptop with 1GB ram, along with a few other applications.  Never have
problems as long as none of them deal with very large data.

Andy

> From: Huntsinger, Reid
> 
> You have probably considered this and it's not an option, but 
> just in case
> it is, I suspect you could buy a dual Xeon machine with 4 GB 
> RAM and run
> Linux + Samba etc for far less than the license fees for the 
> Windows Server
> OS and S+ components. (Probably a whole cluster, in fact!) 
> Then users could
> use Cygwin's X server or Xvnc on their Windows desktops to 
> run things like R
> on it. The setup takes a little time, but ongoing maintenance 
> requirements
> are very low. 
> 
> Reid Huntsinger
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of roger bos
> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 10:57 AM
> To: R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [R] client-server setup for R
> 
> 
> Maybe I didn't state my question as well as I should have.  First of
> all, this is a windows environment.  I currently run R on my desktop
> and I also have a server that I use that the connect to using remote
> desktop.  Each machine has 4GB of memory and is a P4.  I run R on my
> machine and on the server so I can have two programs running at once. 
> Other people in the company don't have as much memory as I do and have
> older machines, so they may have trouble running R on their desktop. 
> And two people can't remote desktop into the server at the same time.
> 
> So my restated question is, how do I share my server with other useRs?
>  If this is more of an IT question than an R question, I apologize,
> but it seems that S+ have a server version where clients connect from
> their desktop and submit jobs and I was wonder is there is an R
> version.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:47:53 -0500, Huntsinger, Reid
> <reid_huntsinger at merck.com> wrote:
> > Is running R directly on the server machine and displaying 
> via X or Xvnc
> an
> > option?
> > 
> > Reid Huntsinger
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
> > [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of roger bos
> > Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 9:28 AM
> > To: R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> > Subject: [R] client-server setup for R
> > 
> > I am currently the only use-R at my company, but they are 
> considering
> > buy a more powerful server and letting multiple people use it.  They
> > asked me if R supports client-server setups.  I know S+ has a server
> > version that does that.  I didn't find anything about that on CRAN,
> > but hopefully someone can correct me.
> > 
> > I did see some stuff about R web servers
> > (http://franklin.imgen.bcm.tmc.edu/R.web.servers/ )
> > and that looked very interesting, but I don't know which one is best
> > and I don't want to spend all my time in HTML programming to make
> > front ends of all the users.  If I have no choice but to go the web
> > server route, which one is the most mature?
> > 
> > If I can't show them a pluasible solution, IT will make use buy S+
> > server and I will have to modify all my code to make it work.  I
> > really enjoy working in R.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Roger J. Bos
> > 
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> > PLEASE do read the posting guide!
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > 
> >
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