This image includes everything you need to train a Moses statistical machine translation (SMT) system on a corpus of parallel text in two languages. Once an SMT system is trained, the Moses decoder can be used to translate from one language to the other. Running Moses on EC2 allows for quick experimentation with a range of data and parameter combinations to build the optimal SMT system for a translation project.

As the system can be used for a broad range of language combinations, parallel text corpora are not included in the machine image. Once the image is instantiated corpora can be copied to it via scp or from Amazon S3. The EC2 large instance type only has a 10GB root partition, which is usually not enough for corpora and trained machine translation systems. So storing the corpora and systems on one of the two available 420GB partitions is advisable.

Once an instance of the image is running it is also recommendable to update the Ubuntu packages to the latest version.

A walkthrough with step-by-step instructions on how to use Moses on EC2™ is available on http://www.digitalsilkroad.net/software.html.

Digital Silk Road provides support for the Moses on EC2™ image, ranging from email support to consulting on how to best customize and integrate Moses on EC2™ into a complete translation workflow.

Thanks to the Canonical team for providing Ubuntu on EC2 and to the Moses, GIZA++ and IRSTLM teams for providing great components for SMT!

Known Issues

1. Sometimes a started Amazon EC2 instance refuses to accept the SSH key from the SSH client (e.g. Putty). In this case it helps to terminate the instance and start a new one. This is due to a bug in the Ubuntu AMIs from Canonical (see http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/message.jspa?messageID=131088 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-on-ec2/+bug/308530) This will hopefully go away with a rebuild of Moses on EC2 with a fixed Canonical image.

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