2.1 ARCC HPC Policies

Owned by Abigail Smith (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Feb 21, 2024 by Lisa Stafford
2 min read

Glossary

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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.

 

2.1.1 Login Node Use

Login nodes are provided for authorized users to access ARCC HPC cluster resources.

Login nodes are intended for specific purposes only and should only be utilized for these specific use cases. Users may set up and submit jobs, access results from jobs, and transfer data to/from the cluster, using the login nodes.

As a courtesy to your colleagues, users should refrain from the following on login nodes:

  • anything compute-intensive (tasks that use significant computational/hardware resources - Example: utilizing 100% of cluster CPU)

  • long-running tasks (over 10 minutes)

  • any collection of a large number of tasks that results in a similar hardware use footprint to the actions listed previously.

Computationally intense work performed on login nodes WILL interfere with the ability of others to use the node resources and interfere with community user’s ability to log into HPC resources. To prevent this, users should submit compute intensive tasks as jobs to the compute nodes, as that is what compute nodes are for. Submitting batch jobs or requesting interactive jobs using salloc to the scheduler should be performed from login nodes. If you have any questions or need clarification, please contact arcc-help@uwyo.edu.

  • Short compilations of code are permissible. If users are doing a very parallel or long compilations, a request should be made for an interactive job, and users should then perform compilation on nodes allocated after requesting an interactive job using an salloc as a courtesy to your colleagues. If you’re not sure how to do this, see an example requesting an interactive job on our wiki.

  • If ARCC staff are alerted of computationally intense work or jobs being performed on a login node, they may will kill them without prior notification.

Tasks violating these rules will be terminated immediately and the owner will be warned, and continue 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.

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

2.1.2 Account Policy

2.1.3 Job Scheduling Policy

2.1.4 Software Policy

2.1.5 Storage Policy

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 brain

Condo: 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

General Policies

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