Changes to General Allocations

For all with general allocations,

Starting April 1 we are making a number of changes to the general allocation.  As mentioned in my previous message announcing notchpeak, starting next quarter the general allocation awards will apply to jobs run on notchpeak and kingspeak instead of those run on kingspeak and ember.

This change results in a decrease of the total number of core hours available for the general allocation by about 25%.  However, due to performance gains between ember (Westmere) and notchpeak (Skylake) generation processors (see https://www.chpc.utah.edu/documentation/white_papers/skylake.pdf for some benchmarking comparisons; note that not all have Westmere processors included) there is a net increase in the computational potential of the general nodes.

Note that all users will have still have access to the ember general compute nodes (along with those on lonepeak) which will be changed to run unallocated -- and therefore with no preemption.

Due to this change in the number of core hours available we will be

1. Reducing the maximum core hours per quarter awarded per research group from 250,000 to 200,000
2. Reducing the maximum quick allocation amount per research group from 30,000 to 20,000 core hours
3. Decreasing all existing general allocation awards four future quarters (as well as requests made this month which are currently being reviewed by the allocation committee) by 25%