3. Resource Allocations

RCIC resources are funded and operated under a shared financial model of no-cost and recharge (pi-funded) allocations.

Faculty

UCI researchers [1] can have two types of allocations:

No-cost: may request no-cost allocations to baseline levels of:
- Computing cycles: are reallocated every 6 months. See Reallocation for details.
- Campus Research Storage (CRSP): 1TB per researcher.
Recharge: when the baseline is insufficient for a particular lab, researchers can purchase additional capacity using grant or other funds. The recharge (PI-funded) allocations are available for

Note

Faculty allocations are PI-centered but the owners can grant access to their allocations to students, postdocs, and other faculty members.

Allocations can not be combined into larger group or center accounts.

Every user

No-cost one time 1000 core-hour allocation. This allocation provides baseline level of computing cycles and is required to allow users to access the Slurm free queues. It enables users who are not affiliated with any research program to have meaningful access to HPC3. Most users should use lab accounts instead of this one-time allocation.

3.1. No-cost 

In general, the cost of administration of RCIC resources is covered in RCIC’s annual budget. RCIC is funded through central campus to provide a baseline allocations of centralized, research computing and data services.

Table 3.1 **Summary of no-cost baseline allocations for campus researchers (faculty)**
Capability	No-cost allocation	How often	How to expand	Expansion costs
HPC3 CPU hours	100000 [2] core-hrs	Every 6 months	Cycle Purchase Hardware Purchase	$.01/core-hr ~$10K/node
HPC3 GPU hours	1000 [3] GPU-hrs	Every 6 months	Cycle Purchase Hardware Purchase	$.32/core-hr ~$35K/node
CRSP storage	1 TB	Never Expires	TB/year	$60/TB/Year
DFS storage	N/A	N/A	TB/ 5 years	$100/TB/5 Years

Table 3.2 **Summary of no-cost allocations for every user**
Capability	No-cost allocation	How often	How to expand	Expansion costs
HPC3 CPU hours	1000 core-hrs	One time allocation	N/A	N/A
HOME storage	50 GB	Never Expires [4]	N/A	N/A
DFS storage	1 TB	Never Expires [4]	N/A	N/A

3.2. Recharge 

When research program needs exceed this baseline, additional capacity can be purchased through recharge. It should be noted, that rates apply only to UCI researchers (faculty, research faculty, research staff).

The recharge tables below provides more details on costs and commitment. Proposed rates for CRSP and CPU/GPU hours are in the process of being approved by the UCI recharge rate review process.

Table 3.3 **Storage Related Recharges**
Item	Rate	Commitment	Notes
CRSP	$60/TB/Year	Year	Two-copy storage, available on campus network. Daily Backups available on campus network/VPN
DFS	$100/TB/5 Years	5 Years	Single copy, high-performance storage. Daily backups are accessible only from HPC3
Selective backup	$100/TB/5 Years	5 Years	Second copy of user-selected file systems on HPC3.

Table 3.4 **HPC3 Computing Related Recharges**
Item	Rate	Commitment	Notes
Server installation	$1000	One-time	Researcher-owned server can be added to HPC3
Server purchase	~$10K/CPU or ~$35K/CPU+GPU node	Equipment warranty plus 1 year	Hardware purchases add capacity for the owner. Prices are estimates. Exact pricing depends on node confdiguration and time of purchase.
CPU hours	$0.01/core-hour	Minimum: 10000 core-hours	Prepaid core-hours valid for 1 year after purchase.
GPU hours	$0.32/GPU-Hour	Minimum: 250 GPU-hours	Prepaid GPU-hours valid for 1 year after purchase.

3.3. How to buy allocations 

The recharge is billed annually via campus recharge and is computed on the basis of recovering the cost of additional space (for CRSP and DFS storage). These campus funds pay for the people, the baseline infrastructure, and vendor maintenance required to provide the robust infrastructure.

All allocation purchase requests need to be emailed by a PI to hpc-support@uci.edu telling us what allocations are desired. Please see sections below for details.

3.3.1. Computing 

Computing allocation for accounted jobs can be expanded through:

1. Purchase core-hours from RCIC.

2. Purchase hardware that is placed into the cluster and converted into core-hours.

3.3.1.1. Purchase core-hours 

Please send a request to hpc-support@uci.edu telling us:

1. Type of core-hours (CPU or GPU)

2. How many core-hours you need

Core-hour purchases a done through an MOU on a prepaid card basis. RCIC does not post-bill for core hours and it is not possible to be surprised with a large bill at the end of a month.

Prepaid core hours are intended to be used within one calendar year. Unused prepaid hours are forfeit after 18 months. The current HPC3 Computing Related Recharges are computed to recover the cost of hardware over a 5 year period at 60% use.

3.3.1.2. Purchase hardware 

Hardware that you purchase is converted to core-hours allocation.

The conversion rate is 95% of the theoretical core hours your hardware could deliver in a year.

For example, a 40-core node can deliver:

8760 hours/year * 40 cores = 350,400 core hours/year

At 95% this would become a 332880 core-hour credit

The 95% factor accounts accounts for usual annual downtime through scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. The 50% of this credit is applied during the 6 month reallocation each year the node is in the cluster (warranty period + year)

Purchasing of nodes in HPC3 does NOT give you a “private” queue.

This means that some of your jobs may have to wait for resources, but it also gives you non-preempt access a larger number of cores than purchased. In the first 1.5 years of HPC3 operation, owners rarely wait for long periods of time.

Hardware purchase process

Hardware is purchased through RCIC and can be requested at any time. When a large enough number of nodes have been requested (at least 4 CPU nodes and/or 1 GPU node), RCIC will obtain quote(s) from vendors for acceptable hardware. Your source of funds (grant or other) is used to fund your share of the purchase. You can only purchase whole nodes, but you may use multiple sources of funds. In this model, we easily support two different faculty splitting the cost of a single node.

Hardware is commodity-based and subject to market variability, prices per 2022:

CPU nodes (48 cores) are approximately $10K.

GPU-nodes (4 x NVidia A30) are approximately $35K.

Outline of Purchase Process

Send a request to hpc-support@uci.edu indicating your interest in purchasing nodes (CPU or GPU and how many) and time frame.
RCIC obtains quotes once enough requests have been aggregated.
Upon your approval purchase is made and your funds are used at purchase time.
$1000/node one-time integration fee is re-charged AFTER the hardware has arrived.

Warning

You may not purchase hardware, send to the machine room, and then expect RCIC to integrate this hardware into HPC3. Any hardware purchased outside of the above process will not be integrated into HPC3 nor will it be managed by RCIC.

Please see Hardware FAQ for additional info about hardware purchases.

3.3.2. Purchase CRSP storage 

Please send a request to hpc-support@uci.edu telling us

1. How much CRSP space you need (TB)

2. For how long (years)

We will create an MOU and sent to the PI for signing and will ask for a recharge index. Once a PI signs an MOU for the desired amount of storage, the allocation is created on the CRSP system.

3.3.3. Purchase DFS storage 

Please send a request to hpc-support@uci.edu telling us

1. How much DFS space you need (TB)

2. For how long (years)

We will create an MOU and sent to the PI for signing and will ask for a recharge index. Once a PI signs an MOU for the desired amount of storage, the allocation is created on one of the DFS systems.