# Policies Pages

# Storage

### Quota

Our HPC cluster has 18TB of storage available to all users. By default we enforce a quota of 400GB per user. If you require more please [submit a ticket](https://jira.appstate.edu/servicedesk/customer/portal/8/create/423) and request an increase. Please also provide a timeline for how long you require the additional storage.

### Retention Policy

We routinely clean up the HPC storage to keep space available for new researchers. Data that has not been modified for 60 days will be deleted. Please keep a copy of your data off the HPC. For code we recommend version control in [GitHub.](https://github.com/)

### Archival Storage

For archival storage we can offer S3 though [Wasabi](https://wasabi.com/) for $7 per terabyte per month. Please [submit a ticket](https://jira.appstate.edu/servicedesk/customer/portal/8/create/423) for more information.

# Role and Support Scope

Our Systems & Research Computing IT team ensures that the infrastructure, platforms, and services you rely on are available, functional, and performant. We focus on diagnosing and resolving system-level issues so you can focus on your research and development work.

**What We Do**

<u>We support:</u>

- Account provisioning, access, and permissions
- HPC, servers, and job execution issues tied to system/environment problems
- Storage, file transfer, and data access
- Software availability and environment configuration (modules, containers, system-level dependencies)
- Hardware, cluster, and network-related issues
- Access to / communication with NCShare
- Classroom specific requirements

<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Our role is to </span>**troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure-level problems**.

**What We are Unable to Support**

<u><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We do **not** offer</span></u><u>:</u>

- Education on programming or general software development
- Instruction on IT fundamentals
- Debugging, rewriting, or fixing user code, scripts, or applications
- Resolving logic or algorithm errors

<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We can help </span>**identify**<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> when an issue is caused by user code, but fixing it is the user’s responsibility.</span>

<u>Before Requesting Help</u>

If your issue falls under “What We are Unable to Support,” please first consult the rest of this wiki. We provide documentation and guidance on using supported tools, software, and workflows, which often addresses common questions and learning needs.

<u>Shared Responsibility</u>

Users are expected to understand their code and workflows. We ensure the systems they run on are working correctly. If you’re unsure where the issue lies, we’re happy to help determine that.

# Classroom Use of the HPC

Classroom use of the HPC is permitted, however there are a few things to consider with respect to resource allocation. Here at Research Computing we have a main mission of ensuring these resources are fairly allocated to the campus.

#### Overall Considerations

- Pick a dataset that can be accommodated by our system. 
    - Keep in mind the multiplicative nature of resource allocation when it comes to classroom use: what might be doable for one or two users probably will not work for fifteen.
    - Generally the smaller the dataset the better the experience.
- Test your program before the semester begins to ensure everything is in place and functions as expected.
- Give Research Computing advanced notice of your intent to use the HPC for a class. 
    - [Submit a support request](https://jira.appstate.edu/servicedesk/customer/portal/8/create/423) at least 60 days in advance of your class with the following info: 
        - Class name
        - Anticipated enrollment
- Please try to use GitHub or ASULearn to distribute assignments and receive work back from your class. We can setup a shared directory for your class for sharing data sets but with the way we have the system configured getting read/write access to each student's home directory for grading is problematic. Once the code is turned in for grading you can clone it down to your HPC account and test it there.
- The HPC is not long term storage and classroom data will be removed at the end of the term. Please advise your students to copy any data they want to keep off the system.

#### Storage

The HPC has 18TB of raw disk storage that is shared between all users, research and classroom alike. These resources are for all College of Arts and Sciences users as they paid the outlay for the hardware. Every user starts out with a 400GB quota to as per our [storage policy](https://res-wiki.appstate.edu/books/policies/page/storage). This can be temporarily increased if needed on an individual basis, however when it comes to classroom use this proves to be problematic due to limited resources and the typical number of enrolled users in a classroom setting. For example, if a class with 10 students wants to use the HPC and each student requires 1TB of space for a data set that will unfairly consume the entirety of the cluster's storage.

#### Compute

There are three main partitions on our cluster. The debug partition consists of two older nodes with 256GB of RAM and 32 threads, the compute partition with the [primary nodes](https://res-wiki.appstate.edu/books/hpc-introduction/page/hpc-information-and-login) and the cs-gpu partition that is limited to users in the Computer Science department. Generally we prefer to limit classroom users to the debug partition as it keeps any problems inexperienced users might cause limited to those nodes, thus not interrupting service to the researchers using the primary nodes in the compute partition.