Available Resources for RAC 2022

Below is the list of resources available for the 2022 Resource Allocation Competitions. For technical documentation about the resources available, please visit our wiki page.

Important: Note that the storage subsystems in all clusters have been renamed to make it easier to identify. For example, ndc-sfu has been renamed cedar-storage.

* The shared filesystem storage is backed up.

How to request resources in the online RAC application form

Note: There should be no discrepancies between what you request in the Resource Justification document attached to your application and what you request in the online form. In case of discrepancy, the online form will prevail.

Please note that HPC compute resources are separate from storage resources in the online application form.

Subsystems have different sets of ressources: for example niagara-storage has only /​project storage; niagara-compute has only CPUs (no storage); niagara-storage has only /​project storage; hpss-storage only has /​nearline storage).

• In the corresponding Resources for Research Groups (RRG) or Research Platforms and Portals (RPP) competition online form on CCDB, go to the Resource Request section:

• The dropdown menu under New resource request will show the list of all systems and subsystems (resources) available for allocation. 
• To indicate that your request can be allocated in any resource and that you do not have a preference for a particular one, please check the option ​“I have to select a system but I don’t mind receiving an allocation on any other suitable one” in the ​“Reason for selecting system” section.

• Requesting HPC resources: In the national clusters, compute and storage resources are shown as different subsystems on CCDB following this convention:
  1. system-compute (e.g. cedar-compute): select these to request CPU resources. Please pay special attention to your memory requirements as this will be taken into account for final allocations.
  2. system-gpu (e.g. cedar-gpu): select these to request GPU resources.
  3. system-storage (e.g. cedar-storage): select these to request storage resources on a particular system. Each subsystem will only show the storage resources (/​project, /​nearline, etc.) available for that particular subsystem. For example, if you want to request both CPU resources and /​project storage resources on the Cedar cluster, you will have to fill in two separate requests: one with the cedar-compute subsystem for core years and memory, and another one with the system-storage subsystem for /​project storage (in TB).
• Requesting Cloud resources: If you need to request cloud resources in more than one location, then you will have to make one request for each location. On CCDB, cloud resources follow this convention:
  1. system-compute-cloud or system-persistent-cloud: you can select compute or persistent VMs on Arbutus, Cedar and Béluga clouds, but only persistent VMs on graham-cloud. Each cloud resource will only show the specific ​“flavours” of VMs available for that particular site.