Minnesota Supercomputer Institute

Access to Resources

Supercomputing Resource Allocations on Core Computing Machines

The Supercomputing Institute offers computer time, disk allocation, software, and technical support on its core machines. Each core machine has a large number of fast processors, considerable disk space, fast input/output, and runs a version of the UNIX operating system. All Institute core machines can be used for serial and parallel codes written in C, C++, FORTRAN 77, and FORTRAN 90. For parallel codes, MPI and the easier-to-use OpenMP are available on all Institute core machines. However, OpenMP is limited to the number of processors on an individual node. The Institute provides numerous commercial and public domain software packages. To determine the system that is best for your use, please contact the Institute's user support staff by sending email to help@msi.umn.edu or calling 626-0802. You may also contact Dr. H. Birali Runesha, the Manager of the User Support Group at (612) 624-8857 or runesha@msi.umn.edu

Description

The Supercomputing Institute currently provides supercomputing resource allocations and technical support for the IBM Power4, SGI Altix 3000, the Netfinity Linux Cluster, the BladeCenter Linux Cluster, and Calhoun (SGI Altix XE 1300 Linux Cluster). These are called the core resources.

Service Units (SUs) are charged for computer time. Currently, one service unit will provide a fixed number of hours of CPU time on each core machine as follows:

CPU Hours per Service Unit
Core Resource CPU hours/SU
Netfinity Linux Cluster 12
IBM Power4 3.5
SGI Altix 3000 3.5
BladeCenter Linux Cluster 3.5
Calhoun 3.5

In the future we will begin accounting not only for computer time on the core machines, but also for large disk usage on core resources and for large disk storage at the Scientific Data Management Laboratory (SDML). When this system is implemented, an SU will be either a computing service unit (CSU) or a disk service unit (DSU). The sum of CSU charges and DSU charges will be added together as the total SU charge.

DSUs will be charged when a group's usage has exceeded 500 GB of disk usage on a system for more than an hour. There will not be a charge for disk usage on scratch spaces. DSUs will be charged at the following rate:

There is no SU charge for software usage, technical support, or for other laboratory resources.

Eligibility

Allocations are available to faculty members at the University of Minnesota and other faculty researchers at accredited institutions of higher education in the state of Minnesota for their work and that of their students and research groups. All proposals requesting an allocation must be sponsored and signed by a faculty member of the University of Minnesota or other accredited institution of post-secondary education in the state of Minnesota.

Allocations are also available to University of Minnesota academic professionals (job classification 97xx) if their research is not part of research led by a faculty member and if the research contributes to the goals and efforts of their department and/or center.

Review procedures

Supercomputing resource allocations are awarded based upon a competitive review by the core resource allocation subcommittee.

Deadlines

The deadline to apply for resources for a January to June allocation period is October 15 and the deadline to apply for a July to December allocation period is April 15. Proposals submitted subsequent to the deadlines are accepted, but have a lower priority.