What is Amazon DCV Session Manager? - Amazon DCV Session Manager
How Session Manager worksFeaturesLimitationsPricing
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What is Amazon DCV Session Manager?

Note

Amazon DCV was previously known as NICE DCV.

Amazon DCV Session Manager is set of installable software packages (an Agent and a Broker) and an application programming interface (API) that makes it easy for developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to build front-end applications that programmatically create and manage the lifecycle of Amazon DCV sessions across a fleet of Amazon DCV servers.

This guide explains how to install and configure the Session Manager Agent and Broker. For more information about using the Session Manager APIs, see the Amazon DCV Session Manager Developer Guide.

Topics

How Session Manager works

The following diagram shows the high-level components of Session Manager.

Amazon DCV Session Manager components
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 is separate from your Amazon DCV servers, but it must be accessible to the client, and it must be able to access the Agents.

Agent

The Agent is installed on each Amazon DCV server in the fleet. The Agents receive instructions from the Broker and run them on their respective Amazon DCV servers. The Agents also monitor the state of the Amazon DCV servers, and send periodic status updates back to the Broker.

APIs

Session Manager exposes a set of REST application programming interfaces (APIs) that can be used to manage Amazon DCV sessions on a fleet of Amazon DCV servers. The APIs are hosted on and exposed by the Broker. Developers can build custom session management clients that call the APIs.

Client

The client is the front-end application or portal that you develop to call the Session Manager APIs that are exposed by the Broker. End users use the client to manage the sessions hosted on the Amazon DCV servers in the fleet.

Access token

In order to make an API request, you must provide an access token. Tokens can be requested from the Broker, or an external authorization server, by registered client APIs. To request and access token, the client API must provide valid credentials.

Client API

The client API is generated from the Session Manager API definition YAML file, using Swagger Codegen. The client API is used to make API requests.

Amazon DCV session

You must create a Amazon DCV session on your Amazon DCV server that your clients can connect to. Clients can only connect to a Amazon DCV server if there is an active session. Amazon DCV supports console and virtual sessions. You use the Session Manager APIs to manage the lifecycle of Amazon DCV sessions. Amazon DCV sessions can be in one of the following states:

  • CREATING—the Broker is in the process of creating the session.

  • READY—the session is ready to accept client connections.

  • DELETING—the session is being deleted.

  • DELETED—the session has been deleted.

  • UNKNOWN—unable to determine the session's state. The Broker and the Agent might be unable to communicate.

Features

DCV Session Manager 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

Session Manager 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

Session Manager 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 and find a Amazon DCV distributor or reseller in your region. To allow all on-premises customers to experiment with the Amazon DCV Session Manager, the licensing requirements will only be enforced starting with Amazon DCV version 2021.0.

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