Both Hive and Farm work on the condo model of HPC. Key features of the condo model are:
- Shared infrastructure - Each HPC cluster serves multiple groups.
- Contributed resources by principal investigators - PIs purchase an amount of storage and compute for their projects.
- Resource Allocation - PIs receive a proportional share of resources based on their investment.
- Centralized Management - Each cluster is managed centrally by the HPC support team.
Please note that HPC@UCD-managed resources are not suitable for use under NIST-800-171 or NIST-800-53 classifications. Please see the acceptable use policy before using HPC resources.
What HPC resources are available?
High-Performance Computing comprises a set of compute resources tied together via a common high-speed network. Each user gets a home directory to store software and data. Commonly used scientific software is available to users to load as modules. Users run software by submitting jobs to a batch scheduler, which allocates resources across all selected nodes.
HPC systems at UC Davis are organized into a set of partitions. High partitions are groups of compute resources reserved for groups that have purchased resources, and low partitions are comprised of resources not being utilized by high partition jobs. Low partitions are accessible to any user with an account, with the caveat that jobs can be killed if preempted by a high-priority job. Submitting jobs to the low queue can be a very cost-effective way to run needed software, with proper application checkpointing during job submission.
Resources available to purchase at UC Davis include compute and storage. Purchased resources are placed into the high queues.
Get an account
Already affiliated with a sponsor?
Log into the HiPPO user portal using your CAS ID. Select FARM or Hive as your cluster. Import an SSH key by using an existing public key or generate a new key. Select your PI or sponsor as your group. Please note that your sponsor must approve your group affiliation after you request an account. They will receive an email prompting them to either approve or reject your group affiliation. Once approved, the HiPPO portal will take time to generate your account, create a directory on the cluster, and provide all the proper associations. Please be patient.
Not affiliated with a sponsor yet?
Graduate Students, Postdocs, and Faculty affiliated with UC Davis can apply for a sponsored account on Farm and Hive by going to the HiPPO user portal and selecting the proper cluster and sponsor. Individuals not affiliated with UC Davis must apply for a temporary affiliate account initiated by a sponsor.
Farm: Please select the 'publicgrp' as your sponsor. Adam Getchell, the Executive Director for IT in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, sponsors a computing tier for non-affiliated individuals.
Hive: please select the 'publicgrp' as your sponsor. The HPC@UCD group provides resources for all research affiliates.
Purchase resources
Principal investigators (PI's) and researchers can purchase compute and storage resources and assign members to those resources via HiPPO.
To purchase resources on Farm, PIs can select items from the shopping cart on the HiPPO portal by providing an Aggie Enterprise chart string. Available resources for Farm are described here.
To purchase resources on Hive, PIs can select resources described on the rates page by emailing [email protected] for both storage and compute resources owned by HPC@UCD.
HPC@UCD owned resources: Compute resources are offered by CPU core, and storage is sold per terabyte. A PI can buy and make any number of cores available to their group, subject to resource availability. For instance, a PI can purchase 10, 20, or 128 cores and make them available to their group. Resources sold to PIs are assumed to be perpetual, unless the PI notifies HPC@UCD by email that the resource is no longer needed. There is a minimum of a one-month allocation.
A PI can also purchase complete servers for their lab with HPC@UCD's pre-approval. We can work with our vendor to procure a standard compute or GPU node and make equivalent resources available in the high queue to the PI's lab at current market rates. At the end of the maintenance period (currently five years), the lab will be responsible for all replacement hardware for that node for up to two more years. At the end of the seven-year period, the node will be unracked and handed to Aggie Surplus. PIs selecting this route should also email a proposal to [email protected].
Purchasing resources in a nutshell:
- Only those with an Aggie Enterprise chart string may purchase resources.
- The individual who is responsible for the resources must have an account on Hippo. After approval, the responsible person must request a PI group. Please see the documentation for detailed instructions.
- Groups with specialized needs can arrange to purchase resources by emailing [email protected] to request a consultation.
- Groups can request UC Davis purchased resources, subject to availability.
- For Farm resources:
- Responsible persons may order resources directly from Hippo after PI group creation and approval.
- For Hive resources:
- Responsible persons may order resources by directly emailing [email protected] with the desired amount of primary storage, backup storage, and CPU cores, along with their Aggie Enterprise chart string.
- For Farm resources:
Connecting to the cluster
Once the account is approved, a user can log in to Farm via SSH by connecting to farm.hpc.ucdavis.edu and using the SSH key they uploaded to the Hippo user portal.
A user can log into Hive by SSHing to hive.hpc.ucdavis.edu using the SSH key they uploaded to the HiPPO user portal. Alternatively, a user can use their campus Kerberos computing account and passphrase to log in. Note that only Hive currently supports campus Kerberos account logins.
Please note that HiPPO cannot currently accept files with multiple keys. The same public key is made available to Farm and Hive.
A user can request multiple group affiliations via the HiPPO user portal. A user can refresh their public SSH key by uploading a new one to HiPPO (and waiting for the key to propagate).
Questions?
HPC@UCD is available to answer questions regarding onboarding. Longer discussions are best conducted during office hours.