If you don’t already have an account, please fill out the cluster application form.

Students and postdoctoral research associates who are requesting an account will need their advisor’s (PI’s) NetID so that we can verify their membership in the advisor’s research group. If you don’t know your advisor’s NetID, you can look it up on the UConn PhoneBook.

In general, it costs nothing. Basic access to the Storrs HPC is provided for free to UConn students, staff, and faculty for research purposes. If you would like to have your jobs run more quickly, we offer priority access for a fee. See: How do I get priority access to HPC resources?

Short answer: In general, data cannot be stored on the Storrs HPC if it contains any of the following:

• personal identifiable information (e.g., SSN, Passport Number, Drivers License Number, D.OB.)

• credit card and/or banking information (e.g., account numbers)

• university records for individual students (e.g., grades)

• personal health information / HIPAA-protected data (with few exceptions)

• data for which the data owner has specified data protection requirements that are not compatible with the Storrs HPC environment

• data protected by UConn’s Export Control Policy (e.g., DoD-related, requires a security clearance)

Long Answer: The Storrs HPC cluster cannot be used to generate or store data that is considered Sensitive University Data or covered by the university's Export Control Policy; for more info, see UConn’s Data Classification Policy. The documents linked in the previous sentence provide more detail about each of those classifications.

Data which may have been been classified as confidential or sensitive may be eligible for storage on Storrs HPC if the data has been de-identified sufficiently that the data classification no longer applies. Any de/re-identification key (if one was used) cannot be transmitted or stored with the data within the HPC environment.

All data that is stored on the cluster is subject to these restrictions, and data that is not in compliance may be removed. If you have read the above documents and you’re still not sure how your data would be classified, please send an email to security@uconn.edu.

Short answer: Faculty can purchase priority access for 5 years if they pay the upfront cost for the nodes.

Long answer: High-priority access is available under a “condo model,” where faculty are able to purchase semi-dedicated nodes which get made available to all users when there are unused compute cycles. Under the condo model, faculty researchers fund the capital equipment costs of individual compute nodes, while the university funds the operating costs of running these nodes for five years. Faculty who purchase compute nodes receive access to equivalent resources at a higher priority than other researchers. The faculty can designate others to receive access at the same priority level, such as their graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, etc. With priority access, computational jobs are moved higher in the queuing system, and in most cases begin execution within twelve hours, depending upon other FairShare factors. A priority user can utilize their resources indefinitely. All access to resources is managed through the cluster’s job scheduler. When a priority user is not using their assigned resources, the nodes are made available to all UConn researchers for general use.

Please note that priority users will not be given separate partitions. Instead, they will be given a custom QoS because the QoS governs access to priority resources (a.k.a. Trackable RESources, or TRes). 

If you are interested in investing in HPC resources, please fill out the HPC Condo Request form.

Short answer: First, you need to connect to UConn’s VPN. Then, you should be able to access the HPC.

Long Answer: The HPC Cluster only allows the connection of SSH from the campus-wide computers, for example:

• computers in the UConn libraries

• computers in campus offices/labs

• computers connected to UCONN-SECURE WiFi, etc.).

To connect to the HPC when you are off campus, you will first need to connect to the UConn Virtual Private Network (VPN). After connecting to the VPN, you will be able to log in to the HPC as you normally do.

For instructions on how to install, set up, and connect your personal device(s) to UConn’s VPN, please go to this webpage.