Allocations

Overview of CHPC allocations for the General Environment HPC clusters

NOTE: If you are looking for information about obtaining an allocation on the redwood cluster in CHPC's Protected Environment (PE) please see our PE allocation page.

Effective Winter Quarter 2022 (requests due December 1, 2021) the maximum award for quick and small allocations has been increased from 20,000 core hours to 30,000 core hours  and the maximum normal allocation request has been increased from 250,000 core hours per quarter to 300,000 core hours per quarter.

CHPC awards allocations on the general resources of the notchpeak cluster based on allocation request proposals. The allocation is awarded to the CHPC PI, and access to the allocation is made available to all members of the group. Jobs from groups with allocation run at a higher priority and can preempt jobs running without allocation. Note that the kingspeak and lonepeak general nodes are run in an unallocated manner, and are available for use by all CHPC account holders. 

All allocation requests must be submitted by a CHPC PI or designated delegate. To specify a delegate, the CHPC PI should email helpdesk@chpc.utah.edu and provide the name and uNID of the user you wish to have allocation delegate rights. 

Other resources on the clusters are "owned" by other PIs and your jobs will not be able to run on those nodes at priority unless you are a member of that group. You may run on the "owner nodes" by changing the SBATCH directives for the account and partition as desciribed on the SLURM documentation page. Your job can thus be run on any idle owner nodes, at low priority, but your job can be pre-empted (killed) if a member of the owner's group submits a job.

Allocations are measured in wallclock core  hour which are 1 hour of wallclock time for each core on a node. For more details see our HPC Allocation Policy. Allocations are managed on a calendar quarter. 

There are two kinds of allocation:

• Quick allocation request (1 quarter only, up to 30,000 wallclock core hours)
• Norrmal Allocation request (submitted at most quarterly for up to 4 quarters at a time) 
  • Small - for up to 30,000 wallclock core hours per quarter
  • Regular - for more than 30,000 wallclock core hours per quarter

Quick allocation process

Quick allocations are for PIs who are new to having a CHPC allocation. PIs may submit a quick allocation request for up to30,000 wallclock core hours for the current calendar quarter at any time during the quarter. It is expected that after gaining experience using our systems with the quick allocation, the allocation process (below) will be followed. Quick allocations are reviewed by senior CHPC staff and awarded at CHPC's discretion. 

Normal Allocation process

Requests for allocations are accepted 4 times per year, according to the following schedule 

• December 1st for allocation beginning January 1st
• March 1st for allocations beginning April 1st
• June 1st for allocations beginning July 1st
• September 1st for allocations beginning October 1st

Current maximum award is 300,000 core hours per quarter.

Starting with requests for Winter quarter 2019, normal allocation request have two separate forms.  The choice of the form depends on the size of the request:

• Small Allocation  Form
  
  • For requests up to 30,000  core hours per quarter for use on the general nodes of the notchpeak cluster
  • Requires only a Title, Abstract, sources of funding, and Publications resulting from the use of CHPC resources
  • Reviewed by CHPC staff and awarded at CHPC's discretion
• Regular Allocation Form
  
  • For requests of more than 30,000 core hours per quarter for use on the general nodes of the notchpeak cluster
  • Current maximum award is 300,000 core hours per quarter for use on the general nodes of the notchpeak cluster
  • Requires additional information about project, code being used, scaling, and other compute resources available to group
  • Requests are reviewed by the Allocation Committee

PIs are asked to submit a request for the four upcoming calendar quarters. Your allocation request will then need to be renewed the following year by submitting another request. You may ask for fewer quarters, but if you expect to be using our systems long term we request that you submit a full year request. If you find your allocation amount needs to be adjusted, you can submit a new request to replace your existing request at any allocation cycle during the year.

Please fill out the allocation request form completely! The committee particularly needs to see your justification for the number of core wallclock hours you have requested. If you are new to the allocation process, feel free to take a look at this Sample Application. It is good to have a track record using our systems via the quick allocation process and smaller allocations before you request a large allocation. Be sure to list your sources of funding, including granting agency and grant/contract numbers. It is also important to let us know of publications resulting from work supported by CHPC. This information is critical to us as it helps us continue to support the computation research community. The more you succeed, the more we succeed. Our mission to to help you get your research done!

For more information see:

• HPC Allocation Policy