Policy: ASAP01 - R4
Title: ASA Policies
Date: 01/01/94:Revised 3/8/2005
Distribution: All ASA Users

A. PURPOSE.

This policy defines the ASA policy document as a vehicle for documenting and communicating policies relating to the Alabama Supercomputer Authority (ASA) and its user community.

B. DESCRIPTION.

ASA policies are numbered and controlled documents that define current policies of the Alabama Supercomputer Authority (ASA). Policies defined in these documents will be followed in operating the George C. Wallace Supercomputer Center (GCWSC), the Alabama Research and Education Network (AREN) and other ASA activities. Policies will be numbered ASAP01-R0, ASAP02-R0, etc. Revisions will be indicated by incrementing the revision number: ASAP01-R1, ASAP01-R2, etc.

C. APPROVAL.

All ASA policies will be approved by the Alabama Supercomputer Authority (ASA) and concurred to by the current professional services contractor.

D. FREQUENCY.

ASA policies will be issued and updated on an as-needed basis.

E. DISTRIBUTION.

ASA policies are applicable to clients of GCWSC, AREN, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Alabama Supercomputer Authority (ASA) and its professional services contractor. Copies of policies are available electronically through ASA's web site ASAP02 - List of Current Policies.

F. SUBJECT MATTER.

ASA policies will address issues which affect users of GCWSC, AREN, and HPC and generally relate to the operational and administrative activities of ASA. While procedures may be defined in the "ASA User Guide", the ASA policy will be the official document for overall guidance.

Policy: ASAP02 - R7
Title: List of Current Policies
Date: 08/16/95:Revised 9/1/2009
Distribution: ASA Staff, ASA Clients

A. OVERVIEW.

This policy exists to provide a list of all current ASA policies. This list will be updated on a periodic basis as needed to remain current.

B. CONTENTS.

Policy: ASAP03 - R5
Title: ASA Hours of Operation
Date: 01/01/94:Revised 3/8/05
Distribution: All ASA Clients

A. OVERVIEW

This policy defines the scheduled hours of operation of the George C. Wallace Supercomputer Center (GCWSC), the Alabama Research and Education Network Operations Center, the ASA Network Office, and the ASA Business Office.

B. THE ASA BUSINESS OFFICE

Alabama Supercomputer Authority
Center for Commerce
401 Adams Avenue
Suite 764
Montgomery, Alabama 36130

(334) 242-0100
(334) 242-0637 (fax)

The ASA office is opened Monday - Friday, 0800-1700 (closed on all State holidays).

C. THE AREN NETWORK OPERATIONS CENTER

AREN Network Operation Center
George C. Wallace Supercomputer Center
686 Discovery Drive
Huntsville, Alabama 35806
(256) 971-7448
1-800-276-0670
helpdesk@asc.edu

The Network Operations Center (NOC) for the Alabama Research and Education Network is manned, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year.

Planned network outages will be posted on the ASA web site www.asc.edu at least four (4) days in advance.

Network outages required by unexpected hardware or software problems will be posted as soon as possible to give users as much advance notice as possible.

The George C. Wallace Supercomputer Center is open to users (and visitors by appointment) Monday through Friday, 0800 to 1700. Off-hour access to users is available, by prior arrangement.

These schedules relate to the functioning of all equipment and services that provide network connectivity to ASA clients.

D. THE ASA NETWORK OFFICE GEORGE C. WALLACE SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER

686 Discovery Drive
Huntsville, Alabama 35806
(256) 971-7404
(256) 971-7473 (fax)
asainfo@asc.edu

The ASA Network office is opened Monday - Friday, 0800-1700 (closed on all State holidays).

Policy: ASAP04 - R7
Title: HPC Charges for Commercial Clients
Date: 01/01/94:Revised 9/1/2009
Distribution: All ASA Commercial Clients

A. OVERVIEW.

This policy establishes guidelines for charging for processing on ASA's High performance Computing (HPC) platforms. Currently, ASA maintains two (2) HPC platforms, an SGI 350 and a Dense Memory Cluster system. The method is based upon a cost recovery charge per CPU hour.

B. HPC SYSTEM CHARGES.

• There is a minimum purchase of 2000 CPU hours upon which an account is established.
• Current CPU/hour rates are on the ASA web site www.asc.edu under HPC services.
• CPU hours on each platform are assigned a value. ASA reserves the right to change the dollar value per CPU hour at any time (will not effect current contracts).
• Jobs that are submitted without a sufficient CPU hour balance will be automatically suspended until additional CPU hours are purchased.
• Special services will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
• AREN access charges may or may not apply
• All HPC contracts expire within one year unless changed by mutual agreement

C. SOFTWARE CHARGES

Clients that request use of software provided by ASA must abide by the software license agreements for those software packages. Most of the software packages have the license terms included in the online documentation.

Most of the software provided by ASA is licensed for academic use. Commercial users or university researchers doing work under contract to commercial firms must contact the Alabama Supercomputer Authority to see if this usage is allowed by the current license.

D. ADDITIONAL CHARGES

Additional charges may be incurred if additional disk space is required above the assigned initial space.

Charges for additional consultation may be deemed appropriate when time is expended above and beyond the normal is experienced.

All users are responsible for the safe disposition (backup) of their own program and data files.

Policy: ASAP05 - R8
Title: HPC Client File Storage Capacities
Date: 08/16/95:Revised 09/1/2009
Distribution: All ASA Users

A. OVERVIEW.

The policy relates to file storage capacities for clients using ASA High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities.

The client is responsible for providing his/her own backup by what ever method is appropriate (e.g. ftp to local node, etc.).

File backup is performed at the central site only for unscheduled outages and disaster recovery.

B. CLIENT PERMANENT FILE STORAGE.

Each client account is assigned a /home directory in a file system for a particular HPC platform. Client files stored within this directory are termed permanent client storage. Files stored here remain until removed by the client or by the PERMANENT STORAGE PURGE (see C, below).

File storage limits in the/home directory are set at 1 GB (1 gigabyte) for the particular HPC platform and a total of 2 GB (2 Gigabytes) across all systems excluding scratch disk.

If a client requires more file space (up to 40 GB) the client must request additional space from ASA's HPC Computational Specialist at hpc@asc.edu .

Clients requiring file space over and above 20 GB must make a request directly through ASA's Chief Fiscal Officer, there will be a charge involved.

C. PERMANENT STORAGE PURGE.

When the /home limit is reached, clients will get a warning message indicating that disk usage must be reduced below their assigned limit within in 7 days. After 7 days without reducing usage, any process attempting to create additional files will be killed.

D. CLIENT TEMPORARY DISK STORAGE.

To accommodate jobs that require large amounts of temporary scratch space, clients will have access to the/scratch directory. This directory provides 1.1 TB (1.1 Terabytes) of temporary storage. Data left in this directory after calculation completes will be purged after seven (7) days with no backup.

E. CLIENT DISK BACKUP.

To provide recovery in the event of a storage hardware failure, files on HPC file storage facilities will be backed up periodically to a RAID server. These backups are not available for recovery of individual files deleted by a client. No backup is maintained for files on/scratch .

In the event that client /home directory files are destroyed by hardware or software system failure, /home,directory files will be restored from the latest backup available. Files on /scratch cannot be restored. A news notification will be posted.

F.ACCOUNT EXPIRATION.

Accounts are established on an annual basis. Home directory files are maintained up to one year after account expiration.

Policy: ASAP06 - R5
Title: HPC Proprietary Program Charges
Date: 01/01/94:Revised 3/24/2005
Distribution: All ASA HPC Clients

A. OVERVIEW.

This policy discusses charges to ASA High Performance Computation (HPC) clients for proprietary application programs available on ASA HPC platforms.

B. CHARGING.

ASA Policy ASAP04 specifies the charging policy for ASA HPC platforms. This policy documents only the ADDITIONAL charges each user is to pay for using certain proprietary programs. These charges are specified by the vendor of each particular program, and are based on program usage.

• Proprietary charges are in ADDITION to the normal processing charges for HPC time.
• Proprietary charges are always billed by the Alabama Supercomputer Authority, unless the user has received an exemption.