At NCAR, CISL provides large computing resources for university researchers in atmospheric, oceanic, and related sciences. To access NCAR supercomputers, storage systems, and other resources, users must apply for allocations, which NCAR makes available through several facilities. Applications are reviewed and time is allocated according to the needs of the projects and the availability of resources. Questions on the following allocation opportunities may be directed to alloc@ucar.edu.
At this time, the Bluefire and Janus systems offer Small University and Classroom allocation opportunities in addition to Small Data Access allocations. Please see the University allocations page for details and instructions.
The deployment of the Yellowstone environment at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) will bring greatly expanded resources and opportunities for researchers in the atmospheric and related sciences. The new HPC system will have more than 600 million core-hours available for allocation each year. The following opportunities and more specific timelines will be announced in the coming months.
To better manage the resources available to the various CISL user communities, new allocation and accounting procedures will be rolled out to coincide with the upcoming NWSC requests. These new procedures are designed to make it easier for users to request and track their resource usage and to help support their associated data management plans. More information will be posted soon.
A limited number of large-scale, short-term university projects will have the opportunity to take advantage of the Yellowstone system before it enters full production. The submission deadline has passed. Once underway, more information will be posted about the University ASD projects.
The Climate Simulation Laboratory (CSL) at NCAR is a dedicated climate model computing facility, supported by the multiagency US Global Change Research Program, that targets large-scale, long-running simulations of the Earth's climate system. The deadline for submissions for the next round of CSL awards has now passed. Approximately 250 million core-hours over 18 months will be available to CSL projects. The next CSL opportunity will be announced in late 2013.
Eligibility. The CSL is open to all Principal Investigators funded or supported by a U.S. university, U.S. federal or state agency, or U.S. not-for-profit research laboratory. CSL requests must satisfy additional eligibility criteria for use of this facility.
NCAR provides computing resources to the university community for investigations beyond the scope of university computing centers. University researchers currently have access to NCAR’s Bluefire system, the new University of Colorado-NCAR Janus Cluster, CISL’s data analysis and visualization clusters, and archival storage system. Please see the University allocations page for details.
The CHAP will be accepting Yellowstone allocation requests during the fall allocation cycle. (The deadline will be announced.) More than 80 million core-hours will be allocated during each semi-annual CHAP allocation cycle.
Eligibility. In general, any U.S.-based researcher with an NSF award in the atmospheric or closely related sciences is eligible to apply for a University Computing allocation. There are some limited opportunities for those without NSF awards.
NCAR investigators will have access to the Yellowstone resources as part of allocations to the NCAR labs and will have a new opportunity to submit requests for larger-scale, project-oriented allocations. Several larger-scale projects will be selected for the NCAR Accelerated Scientific Discovery period, and others will be selected as NCAR Strategic Capability projects. This year's submission deadline has passed. NCAR’s share of the Yellowstone resource will be approximately 170 million core-hours each year.
The NWSC represents a collaboration between NCAR and the University of Wyoming, and as part of the Wyoming-NCAR Alliance (WNA), a portion of the Yellowstone systems, about 75 million core-hours per year, will be reserved for Wyoming-led projects and allocated by a new University of Wyoming-managed process. The fall WNA deadline will be announced. Details of the Wyoming process are available at the U Wyoming web site.
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