Programs and Policies

Temporary Exlusive Access to M2 Resources

Under special circumstances the Director may grant temporary exclusive access to some M2 nodes. Researchers requesting special access should submit this form.

It is expected that such requests will be rare, and the Director’s decision will be based both on the urgency of the need and on the potential impact on other users.

Faculty Partnership Program

Purpose

The purposes of the Center for Research Computing (CRC) faculty partnership program are to:

  1. Help individual researchers leverage the facilities and expertise of the center to more efficiently use their research funding.

  2. Provide a mechanism for the continued growth and renewal of SMU’s research computing infrastructure.

Procedure

Faculty partners will enter into agreements with the Director of the CSC for the purchase, maintenance, and use of hardware and software. The details of these agreements in any individual case will be spelled out in a Memorandum of Understanding which can be executed either at the time of submission of a grant proposal or at the time of purchase. A typical agreement would entail the purchase of compute nodes and an acceptable warranty agreement using an individual’s research funds. The center would agree to install and operate the equipment over a specified time period, bearing all power, cooling, networking, administration and similar costs. In addition, the faculty member and any other users he/she designates would have priority access to these or an equivalent number of nodes. When not in use by the preferred users, they would be accessible to all faculty and student users.

Faculty who might be interested in becoming partners with the CSC are encouraged to contact the Director, leaving sufficient time to develop an agreement on the details of the arrangement before any proposal is due.

Note

A PDF detailing this program is available here.

Policies for Archival Storage

Purpose

Provide a mechanism for long-term retention of data that is no longer actively used. Intended for data that is considered important by the researcher and the organization which may be needed for future reference/sharing or which must be retained for grants or other compliance requirements.

Procedure

  1. User initiates a request to archive data for a period of 5 years, with a short explanation of why he/she wants to archive it.

  2. Director approves request.

  3. User works with staff to profile and organize the data for future reference.

  4. A job is submitted to move (not copy!) data from scratch to archive.

  5. 3 months before expiration the user is informed and given the option to request data retention for an additional 5 year period.

Access and Retrieval

  1. Users will have read-only access to their archived data on login nodes.

  2. If the data is needed for active use user will submit a request and a job to move (not copy!) data from archive to scratch.

  3. If archived data needs to be shared with other institutions user will make a request and staff will provide a mechanism for sharing (e.g., Globus).

Note

A PDF of these policies is available here.