Go to the FAQ for: Investors | Users | System Policies | Illinois Computes
Investor FAQ
What is the minimum investment for a researcher to ‘buy in’ to the cluster?
The minimum buy-in is one (1) compute node. There will be options for differing memory sizes on the nodes and interconnect type (InfiniBand or 10GbE).
Is the buy-in cost a one-time ‘per node’ cost, or is there a yearly fee also to account for oversight/administration?
The buy-in cost is a one-time cost. System administration is subsidized by the campus.
Is there a similar model for a unit to ‘buy in’?
A unit will be treated no differently than a research team. A unit will presumably have a larger set of researchers associated with the buy-in, but the process is the same. It is anticipated that various units would want to buy-in in this way to provide some level of support at the unit level for researchers.
Is it possible to add nodes to an existing primary resource as a node purchase option?
Yes—visit Buy Compute to see options and submit an order request.
Who do I contact with more questions or if I need help?
Contact help@campuscluster.illinois.edu. Please refer to the Illinois Campus Cluster Program and your specific queue/partition when submitting your request.
User FAQ
Access and Accounts
How can I get access to the Campus Cluster?
Individuals, groups, and campus units at the University of Illinois can invest in compute and storage equipment, purchase compute time on demand, or rent storage space on the Campus Cluster. See Available Resources and Services for details.
Illinois researchers can also get access to the Illinois Campus Cluster via the Illinois Computes program, free of charge! Learn more on the Illinois Computes website.
Which primary queue should I select on the Access Request Form?
The primary queue is mapped to the investor group that has purchased nodes. See the Investors page for the current list of investors.
How can I provide external collaborators access to the Campus Cluster?
The best solution is to get a guest NetID for the collaborators. See the Technology Services page with information on requesting an Affiliate NetID for details.
Once you have the guest NetID, you can request access via the Access Request for Research form. Or, have your ICCP allocation manager/technical representative add you to your existing group via the investor portal.
What is the lifespan for the Campus Cluster hardware I purchase?
Both compute nodes and storage disks have a lifespan of five years from in-service date.
Will I be able to access the Campus Cluster after graduation?
Your access to the cluster post-graduation will be related to how long your IL account stays active and/or your group access. If you are a member of a group, and your PI removes your access after graduation, you would lose access to those resources.
Otherwise, your access would remain until your IL account is removed. You can read campus policy for that information.
System Policies
What are my options for additional disk space?
The scratch filesystem is shared storage space available to all users.
Investor groups may also have project space on the Illinois Campus Cluster that can be used for data storage. Please consult with your technical representative regarding availability and access.
Is there a backup for the storage space, so that data are not lost in case of disk failure?
The file system is configured to protect data in the event of server or drive failures. An investor’s data is chunked up and stored across all drives in the storage appliance to ensure maximum performance and data availability. The purchasing of a “single disk” is merely an artifact of accounting to provide a purchase method for investors who have grant money that must be spent on physical hardware.
The campus cluster program offers a DR (Disaster recovery) service that allows users to pay an additional rate (lower than the primary storage rate) for their data to be backed up daily to an off-site/off-campus location in case of catastrophic file system failure or a disastrous environmental event (large power surge, severe storm damage to data center, etc.). If this option is of interest to you or your team, please check out the Buy Storage page for more information. While Campus Cluster Operators will do everything to make the service as reliable as possible, having only one copy of data is a risk. So no data on the Campus Cluster system should be considered safe with a single copy. Campus Cluster customers are encouraged to back up their important data themselves or by enrolling in the DR program.
Does the cluster provide a long-term storage option for finished projects (e.g., on a tape)?
No, we currently do not offer long-term storage. At the end of a storage investment, we ask investors to make a new storage purchase or migrate data to other locations. We may offer that type of service in the future, but do not at this time. Please check back at a later date for more information.
Programming, Software, and Libraries
This section of FAQs is now located in our user documentation, specifically, this technical FAQ page.
Running Jobs
This section of FAQs is now located in our user documentation, specifically, this technical FAQ page.
Illinois Computes
Illinois Computes Queue Policy on ICCP
The Illinois Computes partition of 16 CPU nodes and 4 nodes each with 4xNvidia A100 (16 GPU) is allocated via the Illinois Computes Program, a separate entity from Campus Cluster. Illinois Computes is an investor in Campus Cluster; one that gives away allocations for compute.
The standard allocation granted from Illinois Computes to researchers on the Campus Cluster is as follows:
- 100,000 CPU core hours
- 1000 GPU hours
- 5TB Campus Cluster parallel filesystem storage
When a researcher exceeds their allocation, they are placed into a deprioritized primary queue within SLURM. This enables them to continue their work beyond their allocation limit if there are free cycles in the queue. However, researchers still within their allocation limits receive priority over those in the deprioritized queue.
Illinois Computes queue job priority (in order)
- Primary
- De-prioritized Primary
- Secondary (can be used by anyone with access to campus cluster, 4H max runtime)