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Please note: AARNet is planning to decommission CloudStor at the end of 2023 (FileSender will continue as a standalone service). We will be directly notifying users over the coming months. See FAQs for more information.

Set up a SWAN session

  • Updated

CloudStor SWAN is not available in the CloudStor desktop or mobile apps – it’s only available using your web browser.

How SWAN sessions work

When you start a SWAN session, you create a temporary workspace on the cloud designed for coding, data analysis, and collaboration. Within that environment, you can load data, analyse it, run tests, write code, and run code.

Any files or folders you add to your workspace will be saved to your CloudStor drive in a folder called SWAN_SESSIONS/SWAN_SESSIONS_[date.of.creation]_[time.of.creation]_UTC. So while the workspace itself is temporary and only available while you’re actively using it, all of the files and folders you create are saved as you go.

Start a SWAN session

To open a SWAN session:

  1. Open your web browser.
  2. Log in to CloudStor.
  3. Click swan-icon.png SWAN in the top navigation menu.
    swan-tab.png
  4. If it is your first time using SWAN, it will display a welcome message with information about the service.
    welcome-to-swan.png
  5. If you need to use the very latest libraries available, click Advanced Options, then select Bleeding Edge from to change the Environment Image drop downyou want to use.
    advanced-options.png
    Stable Release:     the recommended SWAN environment to use.
    Bleeding Edge: loads the latest libraries not yet published in the stable release.

    We recommend that you use Stable Release unless you specifically need libraries not yet available in this environment; it’s typically faster and more reliable.
  6. Click Start My Notebook Session.
    start-notebook-session.png
    SWAN will start up your SWAN session.
    This process can take a few moments.

Create a folder

To create a folder in your SWAN session:

  1. Click new-folder-icon.png in the side navigation bar.
    create-folder-swan.png
  2. Enter the name of the folder.
  3. Press Enter.

Use files in your SWAN session

To use files in your SWAN session:

  • Click upload-icon.png to upload them from your local machine.
  • Open the default folder-icon.png cloudstor folder within the SWAN session to access files on your CloudStor drive.
  • Set up git in your SWAN session to sync with a remote git repository.
  • Create them using a Jupyter Notebook or file editor within SWAN.

End a session

  1. Once you are finished with your session, click File > Shutdown Current Session.
    shutdown-current-session.png
    SWAN will then end your session, closing all open files, notebooks and consoles to release hardware resources for other users.

A notebook session that is left idle for five days will be automatically shut down to release resources for other users.

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