2.3 ARCC Hardware Investment Policy

Owned by Lisa Stafford
Last updated: Aug 15, 2024
2 min read

ARCC HPC 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.

 

2.3.1 Resource Management - Condo Model

Unless otherwise indicated, UW ARCC clusters follow a condominium-style model of resource management. Investors, which are identified and listed individual researchers or groups of researchers work with ARCC staff to procure new hardware or allocated already available hardware on our cluster(s). Hardware resources are installed as indicated in a statement of work and administered by ARCC administrators.

When invested resources are not used by the investor, they are made available to the HPC’s general user community. This type of arrangement is referred to as a backfill queue however this general access to investor owned resources may be immediately revoked whenever the investor requests use of their resources. Priority access is configured and then managed through the HPC’s job scheduler. In the event that the all hardware associated with an investment is in use by members of the investment group, investor members are always granted priority access in the backfill queue for their investment.

Idle compute resources are made available to the general use community through a shared backfill queue that includes all compute nodes, however this general access to resources may be preempted at any time by investors when they request to use the resources they have purchased.

2.3.2 Investment Requests

Researchers wishing to investigate purchasing nodes may submit requests through ARCC’s request portal and ARCC representatives will contact the researcher to discuss details associated with purchase requirements.

2.3.3 Investment Agreements

Unless associated with a grandfathered clause or otherwise agreed upon, investments will be associated with a statement of work and contract/invoice which includes details regarding any equipment associated with the investment, cost, and service period.

Should no service period be provided, service agreement period for any hardware investment is 5 years. Other periods may be considered on a case-by-case basis, including a proposal or award performance period.

In line with other HPC condominium models, investment equipment is subject to primary and preemptive use by the investor for the full life of the equipment. ARCC will maintain ownership of the equipment throughout the equipment lifecycle unless otherwise indicated in a contract or statement of work. While investments purchase priority access to the investor, by default they will not buy hardware ownership.

General Policies

For an Index of all ARCC resources policies, see ARCC Policies.