ARCC Policies for High Performance Computing - Software Policy


Contents

Glossary

Frequently Asked Questions


Software Acquisition, Installation, and Support (AIS) Policy

Overview

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

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

The ARCC will maintain a list of currently supported software for each HPC system that ARCC supports. Supported software is evaluated biannually. The ARCC reserves the right to discontinue support for underutilized software. Software proposed for discontinued support will be placed in a "deprecated" section of the software modules interface. Movement of applications to a deprecated status will happen twice per year during system upgrades. Faculty can submit a request for continued software support of deprecated applications using theĀ ARCC Resource Request Form.

New software requests must be initiated by a faculty member via theĀ 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:

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