When BlueBEAR is not able to meet the research needs of a member of the University there is the option to use regional or national HPC services. In all cases registration on the University services and demonstration that these alternative resources are required is a pre-requisite for IT Services to advise on and support access to these resources. Links to the regional and national facilities can be found on the UK HPC Facilities site and EPSRC have Access to HPC calls.
As the University is a consortium partner, researchers at the University can apply to us for access to:
An introduction to both systems is included below with more detailed information about these systems is available on the linked websites. This information includes details on how to apply for access for these two systems. Please open a Other BEAR Request if you have any other queries about either of these HPC facilities.
Access to the other UK HPC facilities is via calls for access. Please see the EPSRC website for more information on these calls.
Baskerville
Baskerville is a national accelerated compute system, hosted at the University. This system provides NVIDIA A100 graphics processing unit (GPU) and is ideal for workflows and computations that require significant GPU-accelerated computing. See the Baskerville Docs for further information.
Substantial Project Proposals
Substantial project proposals can be submitted at any time for Baskerville. Please apply for a substantial project using the Request Access to a Tier 2 HPC System ticket.
Pilot Project Proposals
On Baskerville, pilot projects are available for researchers to assess the suitability of Baskerville for their research and to aid in estimating the amount of compute resources required in a substantial project proposal. Please open an Other BEAR Request to discuss this.
Support
To request support, or information, about using Baskerville please open a Other BEAR Request. In this request, make sure to say that the support is required for Baskerville.
Acknowledging the use of Baskerville
Publications, and other research output, should acknowledge the use of Baskerville. The suggested acknowledgement text is available on the Baskerville docs.
Sulis
Sulis (HPC Midlands+) is a Tier 2 HPC platform for ensemble computing. This system provides access to both CPU-only nodes and GPU nodes and is ideal for larger MPI jobs and workflows. See the Sulis documentation for further information.
Substantial Project Proposals
On Sulis there are fixed accounting periods, usually lasting for six months. There is no carryover of allocated compute resources between periods. Project proposals should be submitted about a month in advance of the start of the next accounting period. Please apply for a substantial project using the Request Access to a Tier 2 HPC System ticket.
Current and future Sulis accounting periods:
- Current: February 2024 to July 2024
- Future (TBC): August 2024 to January 2025
Pilot Project Proposals
On Sulis, pilot projects are available for researchers to assess the suitability of Sulis for their research and to aid in estimating the amount of compute resources required in a substantial project proposal. Please open an Other BEAR Request to discuss this.
Accounts on Sulis
Users on Sulis are managed using SAFE. The PI of approved projects will be asked to confirm the users that should have access to the project. Only users on approved projects will be allowed access to Sulis. To become a member of a Sulis project:
- If you do not already have one, create an account on SAFE
- If you do not already have an account on Sulis, then in the 'Projects' menu select 'Request access' and apply for access to the 'su002: Birmingham' project, creating an account on Sulis using the 'Request machine account' option
Once you have an account on Sulis this will be added to the relevant project.
Support
To request support, or information, about using Sulis please open a Other BEAR Request. In this request, make sure to say that the support is required for Sulis.
Acknowledging the use of Sulis
Publications, and other research output, should acknowledge the use of Sulis. The suggested acknowledgement text is available on the Sulis policies page.