Find and Explore – a VACC-VBRN pilot program for partner institutions
July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024 | https://www.uvm.edu/vacc | vacc@uvm.edu
The Vermont Advanced Computing Center (VACC) provides state-of-the-art high-performance research cyberinfrastucture, including data storage and high-performance computing (HPC) software tools, along with professional staff support for researchers. Whether you want to run computational simulations, analyze large-scale data, or testbed your code before scaling up to national clusters, the VACC can help accelerate your results for proposals, publications, and the scientific enterprise.
For one year, BPI faculty will have access to the VACC through an institutional account paid for by VBRN. Your BPI coordinator will be the account owner (PI) and multiple researchers that are new to VACC services may sign up for accounts through their BPI Coordinator. Each BPI faculty member will become a “sponsored user” account holder and will have the following benefits free of charge:
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- Access to VACC IT staff to discuss research needs and the effective use of cyberinfrastructure resources. Approximately 10 hours per faculty. If further professional technical support is needed, the rate is $60 per-hour.
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Access to either GPU or CPU cluster to run computational research
- A follow-up meeting with VACC IT staff to confirm best recourses for research needs
For those new to high performance computing, it can be daunting to start using a cluster. We recommend new users begin with the VACC Knowledge Base to learn the basics about batch processing, connecting to the cluster, running a job, and more. One-on-one on-boarding assistance is available for free as part of the 10 hours of free support per user. For information on VACC cluster specifications visit: https://www.uvm.edu/vacc/cluster-specs.
If at the end of their trial year (June 30, 2024) a BPI researcher decides they would like to continue using the VACC for their research, they will have the opportunity to apply for a VACC PI account without interruption of services. At this point (July 1, 2024), they will be responsible for the tier payment for future use of clusters and services.
There are two tier options for external users and research facilitator services.
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- Tier 2 Mid-range compute hours and disk storage. Approx. $1,000 annually.
- Tier 3 High compute hours and disk storage. Approx. $4,000 annually.
- Research Facilitator services provides professional technical support for the effective use of cyberinfrastructure resources. This includes ensuring access to resources from their workstations, facilitating multidisciplinary research, supporting data analysis, including statistical analysis, providing scientific application expertise, and supporting existing and emerging technologies. The rate is $60 per-hour and must be in addition to tier level payment.
Interested in signing up for a trial VACC account? Please contact your BPI Coordinator. Questions about this opportunity can be directed to your BPI Coordinator and/or VBRN (vbrn@uvm.edu). Our contact at the VACC is Andrea Elledge, VACC Outreach Coordinator aelledge@uvm.edu.
Image by Matt Howard – Nanoscience High-Performance Computing Facility (Carbon), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6412479