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Practical Hints and Limitations

This page covers some practical hints and lists limitation which might be important for planning and running jobs on ARCHIE-WeSt.

Hints

  1. Do not launch the production job without knowing:

    -How much data it will generate (disk quota limitation)

    -How much time it will take to complete (runtime limit 14 days)

  2. For data transfer use dm1.hpc.strath.ac.uk. It is particularly important for big data transfer

  3. Do not store the results on ARCHIE-WeSt. Copy the data to other, secure location (desktop computer, university storage)
  4. Post-processing data might be done remotely at ARCHIE-WeSt using its' built-in graphic card. Use the vglrun command before normal GUI command.
  5. The project ID needs to be specified within the jobscript. Without correct project ID the job will not be launched
  6. The project associated with the job cannot be over the core-hour allocation
  7. If the usage is over 90% of project allocation the PI will start getting notification e-mails. This is a good moment to ask for project extension if required.
  8. Project usage is calculated basing on jobs completed before 3am every day. If the project allocation is exceeded the project will be blocked, what means that running jobs will comlplete normally but it will be not possible to run any new job.

Limitations

  1. Maximal job running time is 14 days

  2. Maximal job queuing time is 61 days

  3. Maximum number of cores to be used by one job is 400 (10 nodes)

  4. Maximal number of nodes to be used at the time by the user is 10

  5. Soft quota can be exceeded up to 7 days and up to hard limitation

Limitations on Subscription-Fee Users (SL2)

  1. Annual core hour consumption of SL2 user (subscription fee access) is limited to 500,000 core hours

  2. SL2 users need to pay the annual subscription fee (500 GBP) and have enough core hour allocation within the project to be able to run any job.

The ARCHIE-WeSt subscription fee should be paid every year. The subscription fee is 500 GBP per user per year (+VAT) and it is not transferable from one user to another. It is valid for the period from 1 April to 31 March next year, it covers the training and support costs and gives the access to the queues. If the subscription fee is not paid the user is moved to the suspended users list. It is the user responsibility to pay the subscription fee in time.

Training and Support

ARCHIE-WeSt Team provides a wide support for all ARCHIE-WeSt users including help with project application, data transfer, job submission and all other practical issues. Moreover, we install the open-source software on user request and provide the most commonly used licensed software. In general it is possible to use a user personal license on ARCHIE-WeSt, nevertheless due to variations among license terms it has to be sorted on case-to-case basis.

All new ARCHIE-WeSt users are invited for the Introductory training which covers:

  • Basic of Linux. This is dedicated to those who never used Linux before and deliver the skills and information required to operate on ARCHE-WeSt.

  • HPC Introduction. It covers basic rules and ways how to submit jobs on ARCHIE-WeSt. This is mandatory for all our users.

For support e-mail support@archie-west.ac.uk

More reading:

  • Basic Linux presentation is available here.

  • HPC introductory presentation is available here.

  • More job-scripts examples are available here.