What is Amazon DCV Access Console? - Amazon DCV Access Console
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What is Amazon DCV Access Console?

Note

Amazon DCV was previously known as NICE DCV.

The Amazon DCV Access Console is a web application that helps administrators and end users manage their Amazon DCV sessions. The Access Console consists of installable software packages that include a Handler, an Authentication Server, and a Web Client configured to provide a graphical interface.

The Access Console provides administrators with the following:

  • Access to the Amazon DCV Session Manager APIs

  • The ability to monitor the host servers running their sessions

  • Tools to manage the users who have access to the console

The Access Console provides end users a way to connect, manage, and launch their own Amazon DCV sessions.

How Amazon DCV Access Console works

The following system architecture diagram shows the high-level components of the Amazon DCV Access Console and how they work with each other.

Amazon DCV Access Console components and how they work with each other.
Handler

The Handler is an application that helps connect to and manage Amazon DCV sessions by communicating with the Session Manager Broker using the Session Manager APIs.

Authentication Server

The Authentication Server is responsible for authenticating users using Header based or PAM authentication methods.

Web Client

The client is the front-end web application you setup to interact with the Handler (and in turn with the Session Manager Broker). It renders the relevant web pages and serves to the Web Browser.

Session Manager Broker

The Broker is a web server that hosts and exposes the Session Manager APIs. It receives and processes API requests to manage Amazon DCV sessions from the client, and then passes the instructions to the relevant Agents. The Broker must be installed on a host that's separate from your Amazon DCV servers. It must also be accessible to the client, and be able to access the Agents.

Features

Amazon DCV Access Console offers the following features:

  • Provides Amazon DCV session information–get information about the sessions running on multiple Amazon DCV servers.

  • Manage the lifecycle for multiple Amazon DCV sessions–create or delete multiple sessions for multiple users across multiple Amazon DCV servers with one API request.

  • Supports tags–use custom tags to target a group of Amazon DCV servers when creating sessions.

  • Manages permissions for multiple Amazon DCV sessions–modify user permissions for multiple sessions with one API request.

  • Provides connection information–retrieve client connection information for Amazon DCV sessions.

  • Supports for cloud and on-premises–use Session Manager on Amazon, on-premises, or with alternative cloud-based servers.

Limitations

Amazon DCV Access Console does not provide resource provisioning capabilities. If you are running Amazon DCV on Amazon EC2 instances, you might need to use additional Amazon services, such as Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling to manage the scaling of your infrastructure.

Pricing

Amazon DCV Access Console is available at no cost for Amazon customers running EC2 instances.

On-premises customers require a Amazon DCV Plus or Amazon DCV Professional Plus license. For information about how to purchase a Amazon DCV Plus or Amazon DCV Professional Plus license, see How to Buy on the Amazon DCV website. You can also use the website to find an Amazon DCV distributor or reseller in your region. Licensing requirements will only be enforced starting with Amazon DCV version 2021.0,so that all on-premises customers can experiment with the Amazon DCV Access Console.

For more information, see Licensing the Amazon DCV Server in the Amazon DCV Administrator Guide.