KAUST Supercomputing Lab

Announcements

Maintenance Session Monday 13th May 2013

The next scheduled maintenance session will be from 12:00 until 17:00 on Monday 13th May.

KAUST IT Firewall Maintenance 1st May 2013

On Wednesday 1st May between 18:00 and 22:00 the KAUST network team will be making changes to their firewall. They have warned us of an expected 15-30 min network interruption to the KSL network at some point during that window.

FFTW 3.3.3 available on Shaheen

  1. with GCC compilers in Single and Double Precisions with MPI Support
  2. with IBM compilers in Single and Double Precisions with MPI and OpenMP Support

Modules are available for this new version.

GCC module name change on Neser

The default gcc module on Neser has been renamed to gcc/4.4.7 to reflect the correct version number.

KSL Announcements archives can be viewed at http://www.hpc.kaust.edu.sa/lists/private/announce.

User Guide

Our user guide is under active development and provides a good deal of useful information. You can also consult our lists of recently answered questions and frequently asked questions.

Support

Questions, concerns, or problems related to Shaheen should be directed to help@hpc.kaust.edu.sa. From there your issue will be assigned to an appropriate primary contact who will track your issue to resolution. We may sometimes have to request items from KAUST IT or other service providers.

For more general HPC questions and discussion, subscribe to the KAUST HPC User Group list.

Getting an account

FAQs on the process and requirements for obtaining access to the Shaheen Systems are available here.

Getting an account on Shaheen is a three-step process and is detailed in this flowchart.

You should consult our Terms and Conditions of Usage.

  1. Your organisation or department must submit the Organisational Access Application, establishing a relationship between your home organisation and the KAUST Supercomputing Laboratory (KSL).
  2. You (or your Principal Investigator) must submit a Project Proposal describing the work to be done and the resources your project will require. A Sample Project Proposal is also available.
  3. You must submit an Individual Account Application, supplying identification information from which we can generate login credentials.

Use the secure submission form to submit credentials or other private information.

Accessing KSL Systems

After you have been given login credentials (i.e., a username and password) you will be able to access any Shaheen systems to which you have been granted access. Primary computational access to Shaheen and Neser is available via the ssh (secure shell) protocol:

Project Reports

PIs are required to submit periodic project reports during the course of their work on the KSL systems, there is a template available for this.

Policies

System Reservations

Because the Shaheen Systems are a widely shared resource, user reservations are not encouraged. However, if a user feels that making a reservation for dedicated access to all or part of the Shaheen systems is essential for their work, then KSL will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis within the bounds of the following guidelines:

  1. A minimum of 14 days, preferably 30 days, notice is required for all reservations.
  2. The maximum duration allowed for a reservation will be 48 hours.
  3. A reservation may request dedicated access to between 1 and 16 racks of the Shaheen BG/P system. Reservations of less than 1 rack of BG/P will not be permitted.
  4. Users’ project accounts will be charged for all racks reserved for the entire reservation period, regardless of whether they are all used or not.
  5. There are no guarantees that a reservation request will be accepted.

Exceptions to this policy may be allowed based on the merits of a request, but very rarely.

Dispute Arbitration

  1. If a user has a complaint about a KSL decision relating to resource allocation, and the user remains unhappy after discussing their concerns with KSL Management, users can request arbitration from the Chairman of the KSL Resource Allocation Committee (KSL RAC) (currently Dr David Keyes). If the user remains unhappy with the decision of the Chairman of the KSL RAC, users can request arbitration from the Chairman of the KSL Management Committee (KSLMC).
  2. If a user has a complaint about KSL policies, or other matters not relating to resource allocation, and the user remains unhappy after discussing their concerns with KSL Management, users can request arbitration from the Chairman of the KSL Management Committee (KSLMC).

Additional Information

Resources

Media