2019 Call for Proposals to use NERSC Resources

NOTE: This is historical content. It may include references to programs, people, and research no longer active at Berkeley Lab. It may also link to web pages that no longer exist or refer to documents no longer available. It is provided as-is.

Overview and Schedule

The Office of Science of the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) solicits proposals for 2019 allocations of high performance computing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Proposals must support the mission of the DOE Office of Science, and can be submitted starting September 5, 2018.

All current projects (including Exploratory, Education, and Director's Reserve) must be renewed for 2019 if you wish to continue using NERSC. New project requests may be submitted as well (to start in 2019).

The deadline for submitting AY 2019 NERSC proposals (both renewed and new) is October 15, 2018, 11:59 PM Pacific Time.

Award decisions for requests submitted before this deadline will be emailed to Principal Investigators and Project Managers around December 10, 2018. Production requests made after October 15 will be reviewed in late January 2019. New requests awarded after August 2018 may be renewed for 2019 after the October 15 deadline.

2019 allocations will be for the period January 8, 2019, through January 13, 2020.

Submitting Your Request

Requests to use NERSC resources are submitted via a web form known as the ERCAP (Energy Research Computing Allocations Process) Request Form. ERCAP is accessed through the NERSC Help Desk system at http://ercap.nersc.gov/. See Help for the ERCAP Allocations Request Form.

Most projects fall under the "project class" of "DOE Mission Science." Unless you know otherwise, you should select this project class on the ERCAP form.

The currency at NERSC is the "NERSC Hour," which is equivalent to the "MPP Hour" used in previous years. The change in nomenclature was made to incorporate the KNL nodes available in Cori Phase 2 and follow-on systems that may not have a clear relationship to the "MPP Hour," which was based on a multiple of a core-hour on the retired Hopper system. The following charges apply for parallel jobs

Edison: 48 NERSC Hours per hour per node used
Cori Phase 1: 80 NERSC Hours per hour per node used
Cori Phase 2 - KNL processors: 96 NERSC Hours per hour per node used

Projects that use PDSF and Genepool

The PDSF and Genepool systems will be retired in AY 2019. If you currently have an "Experiment" on PDSF or a "Share" on Genepool and wish to use Cori and Edison, then you will need to submit an ERCAP renewal request for your current project. If you do not submit requests for your projects, your user's accounts will not be continued in the new year, unless they are associated with projects that have an MPP computing allocation.

Questions?

If you need help with your 2019 allocation request please contact https://help.nersc.gov or consult@nersc.gov.

If you have forgotten your NERSC password and if you have already set up the answers to your Security Questions, you can get a new password by following the link on the NIM login page:

https://nim.nersc.gov - Forgot your NIM password?

Otherwise, since we do not send passwords via email, you will need to call the Account Support Office at 1-800-66-NERSC menu option 2, or 1-510-486-8612. You can call us at any time, 24 x 7, and somebody will be here to assist you.

Eligibility

NERSC supports research that reflects the mission of DOE's Office of Science. All Principal Investigators funded by the Office of Science may apply for an allocation of NERSC resources. In addition, researchers who aren't directly funded by DOE SC but with projects that are relevant to its mission may also apply to use NERSC resources. If you are not funded by the DOE Office of Science you should explain how your research falls within the DOE mission. See Eligibility.

New Principal Investigators

New PIs (who do not have a NERSC login name) must fill out the ERCAP Access Request web form. Once this is done the Account Support group will notify the new PI of their login name and password to be used to access http://ercap.nersc.gov. See Applying for your First NERSC Allocation.

Accessing the ERCAP Allocations Request Form

The ERCAP request form is accessed from the NERSC Help Desk at http://ercap.nersc.gov. You log in using your NERSC login name and password. If you have forgotten your NERSC password and if you have already set up the answers to your Security Questions, you can get a new password by following the link on the NIM login page:
https://nim.nersc.gov - Forgot your NIM password?
Otherwise, since we do not send passwords via email, you will need to call the Account Support Office at 1-800-66-NERSC menu option 2, or 1-510-486-8612..

After you have logged into http://ercap.nersc.gov, and you do not end up on the ERCAP Requests homepage, select Request a NERSC Allocation from the Can we Help You? menu. If you want to keep your current repository in 2019 make sure that you Click on the radio button next to Renew (or Draft) option rather than start a new request.

See ERCAP Allocation Request Form.

Designating Proxies to fill out the Request Form

Principal Investigators can designate one or more "PI Proxies" who write the request form for the PI (or in conjunction with the PI). See Overview and Eligibility.