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General Policies

Terms of Use Policy

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Applicable Policies and Acceptance

Acceptance

The process of requesting an allocation on an ARCC resource includes acceptance of any policies specific to that resource, and of this Terms of Use which applies to all ARCC resources.

UW Acceptable Use Policy

ARCC clusters and other resources (the resources) are made available to the University community, and as such are covered by the general University Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). All users of ARCC resources are required to adhere to the campus AUP in addition to the policies specific to the ARCC resources. You should read and familiarize yourself with the University AUP.

The AUP includes the following provisions which might be particularly applicable to users of the ARCC resources, but the list below is NOT complete and you are bound by all of the policies in the AUP:

• Those using University ARCC resources are responsible for safeguarding identification codes and passwords, DO NOT SHARE YOUR PASSWORD with anyone. If you have a student, colleague, etc. who needs access to your ARCC resources (i.e. project, storage, etc.), the Principal Investigator (PI) should request they are granted the proper access.

• Engaging in conduct that interferes with others use of shared ARCC resources is prohibited. The ARCC resources are a shared resource. The specific policies about the use of ARCC resources are related to this point.

• Using University ARCC resources for commercial or profit-making purposes is prohibited without written authorization from the University.

ARCC Policies

In addition to the University AUP, the ARCC resources have their own policies which are available at ARCC Policies. The use of any ARCC resource requires compliance with all General Policies linked from this page and any Resource-Specific Policies that apply to that particular ARCC resource.

User Responsibilities

Responsibilities of PIs and Users

• Principal Investigators (PIs) are responsible for ensuring that these policies, procedures, and security rules are followed for their project members and ensuring that project members working under their supervision fulfill these responsibilities.

• ARCC users are accountable for their actions.

• Violations of policy, procedure, and security rules may result in applicable administrative sanctions or legal actions.

Responsibilities of All Users

• Research use: ARCC resources may only be used for research activities. The following categories of use (without limitation) are prohibited:

  • for personal or private benefit,

  • to support illegal, fraudulent, or malicious activities,

  • to facilitate any transaction that would violate U.S. export control regulations.

• User Data Requirements: Users of ARCC resources agree to store only data that meets the following conditions:

  • is research data,

  • is NOT covered by HIPAA or FERPA,

  • does NOT contain personal information such as credit info, entertainment media, illicit material, SSNs or similar personal data,

  • does NOT contain copyrighted material that the user doesn’t have appropriate rights to.

• Comply with requests from ARCC: You are required to promptly comply with all direct requests from ARCC staff regarding the use of the ARCC resources. This includes requests to reduce disk space consumption or refrain from particular actions. We purposefully are trying to keep the list of rigid policy rules as short as possible in order to facilitate the use of these research tools in novel and creative ways. However, when we encounter behavior or practices which are interfering with the ability of others to use shared resources, we will step in and require your prompt compliance with such requests.

• Monitor the email address for your account: You are required to monitor your USERNAME@uwyo.edu email address or if you are an external collaborator, the email address provided when your account was established. You can read email on a campus mail system, or forward it to another address or email system which you do read, but that is the address at which system staff will contact you should the need arise.

• Provide notification:

  • ARCC users must immediately notify arcc-help@uwyo.edu upon the awareness that any of the accounts used to access ARCC resources have been compromised.

  • ARCC users should promptly inform UW of any changes in their contact information.

  • Upon actual or suspected loss, disclosure, or compromise of the two-factor authentication physical or virtual token and associated password, account holders must immediately notify the University Security Office (IT_Security_Office@uwyo.edu). The two-factor authentication token may not be transferred to another person.

Appropriate Use

ARCC resources may only be used for activities authorized by the University. Prohibited actions include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Unauthorized Access: Attempting to send or receive messages or access information by unauthorized means, such as imitating another system, impersonating another user or other person, misusing legal user credentials (usernames, passwords, etc.), or causing some system component to function incorrectly

• Altering Authorized Access: Changing or circumventing access controls to allow the user or others to perform actions outside authorized privileges

• Reconstruction of Information or Software: Reconstructing or re-creating information or software outside authorized privileges

• Data Modification or Destruction: Taking actions that intentionally modify or delete information or programs outside authorized privileges

• Malicious Software: Intentionally introducing or using malicious software, including, but not limited to, computer viruses, Trojan horses, or worms

• Denial of Service Actions: Using UW/ARCC resources to interfere with any service availability, either at UW or at other sites

• Pornography: Using UW/ARCC resources to access, upload, download, store, transmit, create, or otherwise use sexually explicit or pornographic material

• Harassment: Engaging in an offensive or harassing actions toward another individual or organization

Software, Data, Security and Access Control

ARCC Use by Foreign Nationals

ARCC use by foreign nationals is generally permitted regardless of whether access to ARCC resources is from the United States or abroad. However, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulations prohibit the use of ARCC resources by citizens of Cuba, Iran, Syria or Sudan while residing and/or working in one of those countries.

Restricted Data

The use of UW/ARCC resources to store, manipulate, or remotely access information, software or data (materials) that require additional controls or that could negatively impact or compromise administrative and business operations of ARCC resources requires prior written approval from the University. Such materials include, but are not limited to, export-controlled software or technical data subject to Export Administration Regulations (EAR) or International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR); Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or health information subject to the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and materials subject to "Official Use Only" or similar government restrictions.

 THE USE OF UW/ARCC RESOURCES TO STORE, MANIPULATE, OR REMOTELY ACCESS CLASSIFIED INFORMATION, UNCLASSIFIED CONTROLLED NUCLEAR INFORMATION (UCNI), 
    NAVAL NUCLEAR PROPULSION INFORMATION (NNPI), SECRET RESTRICTED DATA (SRD), SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED DATA (SAR), THE DESIGN OR DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR, 
    RADIOLOGICAL, BIOLOGICAL, OR CHEMICAL WEAPONS, OR OF ANY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED.

System Security

UW/ARCC resources control data access via username and password authentication for network access and UNIX directory and file permissions for data storage. Network access and data storage systems provide no explicit encryption. ARCC users are responsible for protecting data files and acknowledge and understand that UW/ARCC security control implementation is sufficient for research data access and storage.

Software Licensing and Copyright Compliance

• ARCC users must ensure that when using ARCC resources, all software is acquired and used according to appropriate licensing. Possession, use, or transmission of illegally obtained software on ARCC resources is prohibited.

• ARCC users shall not copy, store or transfer copyrighted software or data using ARCC resources, except as expressly permitted by the copyright owner.

• Installation of software on ARCC systems must include a valid license (if applicable). No software will be installed on the ARCC cluster(s) without prior proof of license eligibility.

• Installation of a commercial or licensed software will be performed in a best-effort manner. If the requirements for the software are outside the current configuration of ARCC systems, ARCC may reject the installation.

Data Retention

• Users who leave UW: ARCC reserves the right to remove any data at any time and/or transfer data to other individuals (such as Principal Investigators working on a same or similar project) after a user account is deleted or permanently deactivated, or a user no longer has an association with UW/ARCC.

• Data backups:

  • Although ARCC takes steps to ensure the integrity of stored data, ARCC does not guarantee that data files are protected against destruction. ARCC users should read the information on data retention, backups, and data deletion in any applicable policies for the ARCC resources they use, and make backups of necessary data and software in an archive system or at other sites.

  • In some cases, ARCC may elect to make backup copies of some data files. When backup copies are made, ARCC reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to hold such backup copies indefinitely or to delete them.

Policy Violations

• If it has been determined that you have violated any of the ARCC resource policies, or any other UWYO computing policies, your account(s) will be deactivated immediately. Your account will not be reactivated until the ARCC director receives a formal request from the Principal Investigator of your project.

• UW personnel and ARCC users are required to address, safeguard against, and report misuse, abuse, and criminal activities. Misuse of ARCC resources can lead to temporary or permanent disabling of accounts, loss of access to ARCC resources, and administrative sanctions or legal actions.

Disclaimer

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Privacy

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Policy

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The content of this site is provided by ARCC and UW researchers as a service to the UW research community without any warranty of being accurate, current, or applicable to any particular use. The University makes no express or implied warranty with respect to the use of ARCC resources. Neither the University nor ARCC shall be liable in the event of any resource failure or loss of data.

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Terms of Use: General policies on use of ARCC resources

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Privacy Policy: Privacy policy for all ARCC resources

Acknowledgment

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Policy

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Data Collection

The information collected through this site, and other UW pages/sites linked from it (e.g. a help ticket system), includes the necessary information to provide and manage ARCC products and services. Examples include:

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For a user requesting help via a ticket, information about the systems affected and problems being experienced will be collected.

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Website usage data including browser type, operating system, page views, entry sources, exit pages, and other metrics, may be collected and used to help improve website organization and performance.

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The least amount of data needed to perform the required functions will be collected.

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This site complies with the general UW Privacy Policy / Website Usage statement found at https://www.uwyo.edu/uw/disclaimer

Monitoring

ARCC users have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy. UW retains the right to actively monitor all ARCC resources, activities on ARCC resources and networks and to access any file without prior knowledge or consent of ARCC users, senders, or recipients. UW/ARCC may retain copies of any network traffic, computer files, or messages indefinitely without user's prior knowledge or consent.

Data Sharing

• We will take reasonable steps to protect the information that you provide to us from unauthorized access or disclosure.

• Where services are provided to UW users by third parties, the information provided on the allocation request form may be shared with the third-party service providers for use in operating and managing the services, provided that reasonable steps are taken to ensure that the service providers are required to protect this information from unauthorized access or disclosure.

• We will release information gathered through monitoring if required by law.

• UW/ARCC may, at its discretion, share information gathered through monitoring with incident response organizations.

Acknowledgment Policy

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A requirement of all allocations and use of ARCC resources is to acknowledge ARCC and UW support for your research. Our ability to identify supported scientific results helps ensure continued support from the State of Wyoming, federal agencies and other sources for future HPC/HPS systems.

Annual Reporting

• At the end of each academic year, ARCC requires an accomplishment report from each PI containing:

  • The research results (in laymen terms supported by graphs, images, or videos produced) obtained using ARCC resources,

  • A list of scientific publications that resulted from this research,

  • The names, affiliations of graduate students who used ARCC resources, and

  • The title, author, and relevant citation data for any theses or dissertations produced using ARCC computational resources.

• A PI's subsequent allocations may be delayed pending compliance with these reporting requirements.

Citation

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Please cite your use of computing resources managed by ARCC using a format that includes the relevant Archival Resource Key (ARK) or Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for the ARCC resource.

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The ARKs/DOIs for ARCC resources are:

• Mount Moran: http://n2t.net/ark:/85786/m4159c

• petaLibrary: http://n2t.net/ark:/85786/m4z59r

• Teton: https://doi.org/10.15786/M2FY47

Examples of formal citation of ARCC resources can be found at:

• Citing Mount Moran

• Citing the petaLibrary

• Citing Teton

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Resource-Specific

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These policies and procedures are intended to ensure that ARCC HPC facilities are fairly shared, effectively used, and support the University of Wyoming's research programs that rely on computational facilities not available elsewhere at the University.

Definitions

Cluster  an assembly of computational hardware designed and configured to function together as a single system, much the way neurons work together to form a brainCondo  a computational resource that is shared among many users — condo compute resources are used simultaneously by multiple users HPC - high-performance computing generally refers to systems that perform parallel processes at a level above a teraflop or 1012 floating-point operations per second HPS - high-performance storage system, usually a tiered system with media covering a range of speeds to optimize performance while reducing cost customer a person, or group to whom ARCC provides a service

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Policies

For policies that apply to all ARCC resources, see ARCC Policies.

HPC Policies

Usage of Login Nodes

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title	Click to View - Usage of Login Nodes

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The login nodes are provided for authorized users to access the Teton cluster.

• They are intended for people to set up and submit jobs, access results from jobs, transfer data to/from the cluster, etc. As a courtesy to your colleagues, you should refrain from doing anything compute-intensive (any task(s) that uses 100% of a CPU), long-running tasks (over 10 minutes), a large number of tasks that have the same footprint on these nodes as it will interfere with the ability of others to use the node resources. Compute intensive tasks should be submitted as jobs to the compute nodes, as that is what compute nodes are for.

• Short compilations of code are permissible. If you are doing a very parallel or long compilation, you should consider requesting an interactive job and doing your compilation there as a courtesy to your colleagues.

• Compute-intensive calculations, etc. are NOT allowed on the login nodes. If system staff find such jobs running, we will kill them without prior notification.

Note
Tasks violating these rules will be terminated immediately and the owner will be warned and continued violation may result in the suspension of access to the cluster(s). Access will not be restored until the ARCC director receives a written request from the user’s PI.

Note
Do NOT run compute-intensive, long-running tasks, or large numbers of tasks on the login nodes.

Account Policy

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Account Policy

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HPC/HPS Accounts

Overview

HPC/HPS accounts are available for all University faculty, staff and students for the purpose of research.

Account Sponsorship by a PI

• All accounts must be sponsored by a University of Wyoming Principal Investigator (PI). Sponsorship gives permission to a user to use the HPC/HPS resource allocations of the sponsor.

• PIs can sponsor multiple users. Users can be sponsored by multiple PIs.

• HPC/HPS resource allocations are granted to PIs. Users utilize resources from their sponsor's allocations.

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The following conditions apply to all account types. Additional details on how the different account types of work can be found elsewhere on this page.

• All HPC accounts are for academic purposes only.

• Commercial activities are prohibited.

• Password sharing and all other forms of account sharing are prohibited.

• Account-holders found to be circumventing the system policies and procedures will have their accounts locked or removed.

Account requests

All HPC accounts can be requested through the ARCC Access Request Form. Note that all requests, for creating projects and adding users to a project, must be made by the project PI.


For questions about HPC account procedures not addressed below, please contact ARCC.

DefinitionsPrincipal Investigator (PI) Account account of a faculty member who has an extended-term position with UW (e.g. not Adjunct Faculty)Sponsored Researcher a member (e.g. Student/Graduate Assistant, Faculty, or Researcher from another Institution) of a research project for which a UW faculty member is the PISystem Account account of a staff member who has a permanent relationship with UW

Account Types

PI Accounts

PI accounts are for individual PIs only. These accounts are for research only and are not to be shared with anyone else. These accounts are subject to periodic review and can be deleted if the account holders change their University affiliation or fail to comply with UW and ARCC account policies.

Sponsored Accounts

PIs may sponsor any number of accounts, but these accounts must be used for research only. UW faculty are responsible for all of their sponsored account users. These accounts are subject to periodic review and will be deleted if the sponsoring faculty or the account holders change their University affiliation or fail to comply with UW and ARCC account policies.

Instructional Accounts

PIs may sponsor HPC accounts and projects for instructional purposes on the ARCC systems by submitting a request through the ARCC Access Request Form. Instructional requests are subject to denial only when the proposed use is inappropriate for the systems and/or when the instructional course would require resources that exceed available capacity on the systems or substantially interfere with research computations. HPC accounts for instructional purposes will be added by the Sponsor into a separate group created with the 'class group' designation. Class group membership is to be sponsored for one semester and the Sponsor will remove the group at the end of the semester. Class/Instructional group jobs should only be submitted to the 'class' queue, which will be equivalent in priority to the 'windfall' queue, and only available on the appropriate nodes of the ARCC systems.

System Accounts

System accounts are for staff members who have a permanent relationship with UW and are responsible for system administration.

Account Lifecycle

Account Creation

ARCC HPC/HPS accounts will be created to match existing UWYO accounts whenever possible. PIs may request accounts for existing projects/allocations or courses.

Account Renewal

Account Transfer

A PI who is leaving the project or the University can request that their project be transferred to a new PI. Any non-PI accounts can be transferred from one PI's zone of control to another as necessary as students move working from one researcher to another. Account transfer requests will also be made by contacting the Help Desk (766-4357).

Account Termination

The VP of Research, the University and UW CIO, and University Provost comprise the University of Wyoming's Research Computing Executive Steering Committee (UW-ESC). The UW-ECS will govern the termination of Research Computing accounts, following other University policies as needed. Non-PI accounts may be terminated at the request of the UW-ESC. Any users found in violation of this Research Computing Allocation Policy or any other Policies may have access to their accounts suspended for review by the Director of Research Support, IT and the UW-ESC.

Job Scheduling Policy

Software Policy

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Policy

Software

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Policy

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Overview

This document defines the ARCC's software policy regarding software acquisition, installation, and support. ARCC will help UW users through:

• Consultations on software capabilities and acquisition expertise

• Guidance with respect to software installation and deployment, and secured/controlled access

• Support with respect to the efficient and effective functioning of software (where not provided by software vendor)

• Software updates to maintain currency with the vendors and ARCC systems

General software usage, functionality and application questions should be addressed by the research computing community. To support the community support model, ARCC will make available a community-driven Known Error Database in the form of a Wiki with discussion board features.

The ARCC will review the software policy annually during the Change Advisory Board meeting with input from the Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) members.

Software Requests

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New software requests must be initiated by a faculty member via the ARCC Resource Request Form. The information on this form (e.g. estimates on the number of users, software and licensing details, software cost, and the timeline for installation) will be utilized to determine the degree of support provided by the ARCC.

Software Acquisition

Financial Support

Whenever possible, researchers are encouraged to use open-source software. The costs for discipline-specific, proprietary software will typically be born by the PIs requesting the software. A small number of one-time 'seed funding' opportunities may be made with input from the FAC. Financial support for the software is dependent on the user base, as follows:

• Single PI or department: The license for the software is purchased by the user and his/her department. ARCC will handle acquisition, installation, and support on ARCC resources.

• Multiple PIs or departments in a single College: The license for the software is purchased by the college. ARCC will handle acquisition, installation, and support on ARCC resources.

• Broad Use (Multiple Colleges): If the software (e.g. MatLab or Mathematica) serves both significant academic and research uses, then funding by will be reviewed by UW-IT. If the software serves significant research uses only; then the ARCC will review funding. ARCC will handle acquisition, installation, and support on ARCC resources.

Technical Support

ARCC staff will provide support in the identification of efficient and cost-effective software packages to meet the research objectives of faculty members. Where suitable the ARCC will coordinate software acquisitions of faculty with similar objectives to better leverage research investment.

Software Installation

Licensing Support

The ARCC, with the help of UW-IT and UW General Council, will help provide guidance on research software licensing and suitable installation/controlled access.

Technical Support

ARCC staff will provide software installation services for software to be run on ARCC resources. Department IT consultants will help with the installation of software on researchers' workstations. The ARCC will also provide centralized license server services for software on ARCC resources when needed.

Software Support

• Staff will provide software support with respect to efficient and effective software functions (where not provided by the software vendor). The ARCC will also oversee and implement software updates to maintain currency with both the software vendor and ARCC resources.

• Debuggers will be provided as part of the Moran software suite.

• ARCC will endeavor to facilitate code development.

Storage Policy

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Overview

Code-named Teton, the ARCC high-performance storage system (HPS) is a high speed, tiered storage system designed to maximize performance while minimizing cost. Teton is intended to be used for storing data that is actively being used.

The following policies discuss the use of this space. In general, the disk space is intended for support of research using the cluster, and as a courtesy to other users of the cluster, you should try to delete any files that are no longer needed or being used.

All data on the HPS, are considered to be related to your research and not to be of a personal nature. As such, all data is considered to be owned by the principal investigator for the allocation through which you have access to the cluster.

Teton is for the support of active research using the clusters. You should remove data files, etc. from the cluster promptly when you no longer actively working on the computations requiring them. This is to ensure that all users can avail themselves of these resources.

Storage Allocations

Each individual researcher is assigned a standard storage allocation or quota on /home, /project and /gscratch. Researchers who use more than their allocated space will be blocked from creating new files until they reduce their use, or in the case of /project and /gscratch, request a one-time expansion or purchase additional storage. The chart below shows the storage allocations for individual accounts and the cost of additional space.

Directory Descriptions/home Private user space for storing small, long term files such as environment settings, scripts, and source code./project Project-specific space shared among all members of a project for storing short term data, input and output files./gscratch User-specific space for storing data that is actively being processed. This storage can be purged of old files as needed and is not for long term storage./lscratch Node specific space for storing short-term computational data relevant to jobs running on that node. Files are deleted nightly.

Directory Summary Table

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Directory

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Backed up?

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Default Allocation

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Total Size

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Media type

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Storage

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Supported Protocols

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/home

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No

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5 GB

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1.2PB

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Tier 1

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$50 one-time setup fee and $100 / TB / year

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NFS, CIFS, GPFS

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/project

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No

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1 TB

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1.2PB

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Tier 1 & 2

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One time proposal increase renewed every six months or $50 one-time setup fee and $100 / TB / year thereafter

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NFS, CIFS, GPFS

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/gscratch

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No

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5 TB

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1.2PB

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Tier 1 & 2

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One time proposal increase renewed every six months or $50 one-time setup fee and $100 / TB / year thereafter

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NFS, CIFS, GPFS

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/lscratch

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No

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N/A

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200GB to 1TB

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N/A

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N/A

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N/A

Augmenting Capacity of Disk Allocation

Researchers working with or generating massive data sets that exceed the default 5 TB allocation, or having significant I/O needs should consider the following options:

• Rent space on shared hardware: There is a set price per TB per 3 years. Please contact ARCC for the exact price.

• Purchase additional storage disks to be incorporated into Teton: This option is appropriate for groups that need more space than the free offering, but don’t have the extreme space or performance demands that would require investing in dedicated hardware.

• Buy your own dedicated storage hardware for Research Computing to host: If you need more than about 15 TB of storage or very high performance, dedicated hardware is more economical and appropriate. The exact choices are always evolving. Please contact ARCC for details.

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Policy

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This describes ARCC's file deletion policy:

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/home: Home directories will only be deleted after the owner has been removed from the university system.

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/project: Project directories will be preserved for up to 6 months after project termination.

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/gscratch: Files may be deleted as needed without warning if required for system productivity.

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petaLibrary Policies

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Data Protection Backups

Data Protection/Backups Policy:

• Data residing in Commons, Homes, or Restricted file shares are protected each night with a read-only snapshot. 20 snapshots are kept and protected from most scenarios that are not system-wide. End-users can access the snapshots for self-service restores.

• All data on the petaLibrary is mirrored to a similar storage system. The backups are based on allocation, occur incrementally every weekday, and have a full backup starting on Friday that runs through the weekend. This backup methodology protects from a system-wide disaster, e.g. complete loss.

Usage

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