Allocated Resources

MPP (Massively Parallel Processing) Resources

For the 2008 allocation year computational resources will be allocated in IBM SP Power3 equivalent hours. The units are called MPP hours.

MPP resources are:

1. Franklin, a Cray XT4 system with 19,344 computational cores. Its machine charge factor is 6.5.
2. Bassi, an IBM Power5 with 888 computational processors. Its machine charge factor is 6.
3. Jacquard, an AMD Opteron Linux Cluster with 712 computational processors. Its machine charge factor is 3.6.
4. DaVinci, an SGI Altix 350 cluster with 32 computational processors. Its machine charge factor is 4.

For most production projects the minimum MPP request is 50,000 hours (exceptions can be made for computer science and applied math projects that only need resources for testing purposes). For startup projects, the maximum MPP request is 50,000 hours.

Archival Storage Resources

Archival storage resources are allocated for HPSS, NERSC's Mass Storage System, in units called Storage Resource Units (SRUs).

All projects are awarded at least 10 SRUs. For Startup projects, the maximum SRU request is 10,000 SRUs.

PDSF Projects

In addition, requests to use the NERSC's Parallel Distributed Systems Facility (PDSF) are included on the ERCAP Form. PDSF awards, however, are handled separately from ERCAP. See Account Information for PDSF for eligibility.

PDSF repos are renewed for the next fiscal year using the PDSF tab on the ERCAP request form.

Allocation management

Please read NERSC Account Management. See especially the section on Allocation Management which explains how allocations to repositories with low usage are decremented at certain times during the year.