HPC Institution/Condo Model

Overview

The Institution/Condo model provides access to the Central HPC for research Faculty and PIs through two methods: Condo Ownership and Guest access. While the Central HPC environment is maintained by the Division of Information Technology (DoIT), its compute notes and technical infrastructure are supplemented by Faculty/PIs who purchase compute nodes from their grants or other available funds which are then added to the cluster. This allows Faculty/PIs to take advantage of the centralized administration and maintenance associated with Central HPC including operating costs, system administration, data center space, and maintenance for managing and housing Faculty/PI purchased compute nodes. These costs are waived in exchange for allowing other, authorized Faculty/PI researchers to make use of any idle compute cycles on the Faculty/PI purchased nodes, called Condos. Condo owners have priority access to computing resources equivalent to those purchased with their funds, but can access more available and idle nodes for their research if needed. This provides the Faculty/PI with increased compute resources and lower administrative costs associated with managing a standalone cluster.

Faculty and PIs who have not invested into the system can participate as Community Members. Jobs submitted by Community Members will be scheduled at a lower priority to allow for Condo owner jobs to complete. They will also receive fewer resources allocated for their jobs. More information about Condo Owners and Community Members can be found below. Condo Owners and Community members are expected to use the Central HPC in a manner that does not impact performance of the system or other researchers. Participating Faculty/PIs must adhere to Good Citizen practices.

Condo Owners

Details

Faculty/PIs who purchase nodes for the Central HPC will have access to equivalent purchased resources for a 10-year period, with full ownership of the Condo for the first 5 years and diminishing resources (reduced 20% per year) each year thereafter until the 10th year. Condo owners will continue their HPC access as Guests in the 11th year, unless they reinvest into another Condo. This two-part, structured arrangement is designed to ensure the DoIT Data Center meets a critical requirement that all equipment must be maintained under manufacturer warranty or support. Because Faculty/PI purchased compute nodes will be under manufacturer warranty based on a 5-year life-cycle, DoIT will assume transfer of equipment and warranty until the end of the 10th year. Faculty/PI condo owners will continue to access equivalent Condo resources for years 6-10 at a reduced rate of 20% per year. This will provide participating Faculty/PI's time to seek funding to purchase new compute nodes, while ensuring they have more resources than guests currently receive.

Condo purchases are based on available funding. Typical Condos range in price from $15,000 to $35,000 depending on desired resources. Upon funding approval, DoIT will provision a Condo utilizing existing resources equivalent to those that would be purchased. DoIT will then use the approved funding to replenish the Central HPC infrastructure.

There are no minimum node purchase requirement to participate in the Condo model. The purchase must be performed by DoIT, who will work with approved vendors for quote and purchase. If you are writing a grant proposal, please email us at DoIT-ServiceManagement@csulb.edu for assistance or refer to the CSULB High Performance Computing Environment page to assist with documentation for grant proposals.

Process

For more information or to begin the purchase of a Condo, please contact DoIT-ServiceManagement@csulb.edu.

Storage & Backup

A shared disk file system provides direct disk access from login, development and compute nodes of the cluster.

Personal data should be stored in /home/[EmployeeID]. Here, each user has their own 50 GB of space (more available upon request), which is backed up daily. A 1 TB block of space to be shared among members of a research group may be obtained if the group can provide adequate justification. Files on this system, located at /research/[groupname], are also backed up daily. The /scratch directory exists on each compute node on a high-speed SSD drive and is shared among all users. A user should store files here when a job requires those files to be accessible during a computation. This space is not intended for long-term storage, and is thus not backed up. Additionally, any files in /scratch that are older than 90 days are flagged for automatic deletion.

Software

Prospective Condo owners should review the System Software section to confirm that their applications are compatible with Central HPC's operating system, job scheduler and operating environment.

Resource Utilization Guidelines

Each job submitted by a Condo owner will have infinite walltime on equivalent purchased resources.
Condo owner jobs are given resources ahead of Guest jobs. Condo Owners also have access to their condos and priority to available idle resources.
There is no limit on the total number of simultaneous jobs for any Condo owner.

Cost

The expected cost of a Condo (1 nodes) is approximately $15,000 (based on May 2018 configuration and rates). Prospective Condo owners can request a quote for a more accurate pricing if they would like to proceed. The Division of IT does not mark up or add any fees to the price of a Condo.

Community Members

Details

Approved research Faculty/PIs may participate as Community Members, but resource allocation and job schedule priorities will be less than Condo Owners. Community member access is limited to CSULB employee and their approved CSULB research assistants.

Process

For more information or to begin purchase of a Condo, please contact DoIT-ServiceManagement@csulb.edu.

Storage

A shared disk file system provides direct disk access from login, development and compute nodes of the cluster.