Manage software in Unity OnDemand

Unity OnDemand provides Batch Connect as a way to run graphical applications. Batch Connect starts your software as a batch job, then connects you to your software through a VNC server. Anything that you could have run with X11 forwarding can now be run much faster and more easily through Batch Connect.

As of May. 2025, Unity OnDemand provides VSCode, JupyterLab, Matlab, RStudio, Mathematica, and a Virtual Desktop environment, a general-purpose interactive desktop environment.

Run software with Batch Connect

The following steps will guide you through how to run software with Batch Connect.

1. In Unity OnDemand, click the My Interactive Sessions icon from the top menu.

   

   The Interactive Sessions page opens, showing a menu of Interactive Apps and any active sessions that you have.

   

2. Select an Interactive App from the side menu. A form opens for the app you selected.

3. Select the resources you would like to schedule (CPU threads, time, GPU’s) and leave blank any fields that may be irrelevant to your job.

4. Once you are done filling in the fields, click Launch. The Interactive Sessions page opens and the job you started is waiting in the queue.

   

   Once the job has left the queue, it turns from Queued to Starting to Running, and the Connect to Jupyter button appears at the bottom of the job card.

5. Click Connect to Jupyter to connect to your job.