This document describes the general user policies for the High performance Computing facility (HPC) at the Florida State University (FSU). These policies were endorsed by the HPC advisory panel in order to ensure the fair use and sustainability of this university resource. If you have any questions or remarks about the policies described herein, please contact the HPC Director.

Use of the HPC signifies compliance with and acceptance of general user policies contained on this web site.

Communication

The main communication outlet from the HPC staff to HPC users is through the HPC "notice" mailing list. Information will also be posted upon login and on the home page of the HPC website.

Requests for help in HPC related matters should be sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Security

HPC accounts are created for single users.  Users are not allowed to share their account or their account password with anyone. Maintaining individual accounts helps us account for usage and helps us to maintain a more secure system.  HPC staff will be glad to assist you if you wish to share data with your lab members or collaborators.

Failure to maintain the confidentiality of your password can result in the following actions:

• The offending user's account will be suspended and the user will be forced to change his/her password. The account will be reinstated after the approval of the HPC director. The director will contact the sponsor of the account and will wait for acknowledgment of receipt by the sponsor before the account is reinstated.
• After a second incident, the user account will be suspended and the user will be forced to change his/her password. The account will be reinstated only after the approval of the HPC advisory panel chair.
• If more than two incidents occur, the HPC advisory panel will determine whether account privileges on HPC will be permanently terminated.

System Misuse

The HPC is a shared system; therefore, your actions can impact the work of other users. The HPC is not comparable to a desktop machine; i.e., practices that are acceptable on your desktop can have serious impacts on the HPC system and affect many other users. The following is list of general guidelines that every HPC user should follow.

• Do not run long interactive or non-interactive jobs on HPC log in nodes. Use the scheduling system to submit your job. See the MOAB documentation for help on how to run an interactive job.
• Do not over-allocate parallel jobs. Make certain that your job uses the number of processors that you have requested or reserved.
• Do not run highly experimental code that might compromise the usability of the log in nodes, the network fabric, any of the compute nodes, or the shared storage system.

The HPC staff may take the following action immediately if an abuse of the system is identified.

• Offending jobs will be suspended and help will be offered to resolve the misuse issue.
• Offending user accounts will be suspended following a review by the HPC advisory panel. Reviews will be conducted if a user misuses the system two or more times after being warned.

Dedicated Time Slots

Four times per calendar year the HPC system is taken off line and shut down in order to perform scheduled maintenance. Immediately following scheduled maintenance periods a period of 48 hours is reserved for users to run large parallel jobs for the majority of the HPC facility to test the efficiency of code and to conduct scaling experiments. The HPC advisory panel will review proposals for dedicated use of the HPC. Your request for access to a dedicated time slot must meet the following criteria.

• Person submitting the request must have an HPC account.
• Justify the request
• Demonstrate readiness within two weeks of the dedicated run period.
• Runs must complete within 24 hours
• Runs must use one half or more of all HPC processor cores.

 Policy Disputes

Appeals concerning the general user policy described herein or any actions taken by HPC staff should be made to the HPC Director. If the HPC Director cannot identify a mutually agreeable resolution then appeals should be made in writing to the HPC advisory panel chair. The advisory panel chair will distribute appeals to the members of the advisory panel for discussion and resolution. The decision of the panel is final.