Cyberinfrastructure Partnership: Allocations:

NEW! As an experiment, with encouragement from NSF, TeraGrid would like to make up to 10% of the computer resources allocable at each MRAC and LRAC meeting available for use by NIH-funded academic researchers. Starting with submissions to the September 2007 meetings, PIs will notice updates in POPS to help us collect information about their supporting grants for this experiment.

To use TeraGrid resources, you must submit a request for an allocation of computing time or data storage space. To make such a request, you need to have an understanding of the type of codes you will be running, the amount of time you’ll need to complete the simulations you plan to conduct, and if you’ll have special data needs. Allocation requests are subject to a review process, which varies according to the size of your request.

To apply, the principal investigator (PI) must be a researcher or educator at a U.S. academic or non-profit research institution. A qualified advisor may apply for an allocation for his or her class, but a high school, undergraduate or graduate student may not be a PI. A postdoctoral researcher can also be a PI. (PIs can later request that students be granted accounts to use the PI’s allocation.)

In general, TeraGrids follow the guidelines outlined in the current NSF Grant Proposal Guide. However, investigators with support from any funding source, not just NSF, are encouraged to apply. If your institution is not a university or a 2- or 4-year college, special rules may apply. Contact allocations@teragrid.org for details.

The TeraGrid resource providers offer a variety of HPC systems for allocation. The compute platforms include clusters, scalable-parallel systems and shared-memory systems with various CPU, memory, communication and storage configurations. It is important that the platform you choose is a good match for your computational plans. For more information about available machines, including TeraGrid capabilities, please visit the TeraGrid Resources Catalog.

Time on compute resources is allocated in “service units,” or SUs. One SU is currently defined as one CPU-hour (wallclock time) on a given platform. One SU of TeraGrid Roaming Access is defined as one CPU-hour on the TeraGrid Cluster. See Calculating Service Units for more information.

All TeraGrid compute allocations include access to disk and archival storage to accomplish the project’s goals. In addition, several RPs currently offer storage platforms to serve other data and storage needs, such as data-collection hosting, data management, and large-scale persistent storage. These resources are now allocated via POPS and the LRAC/MRAC process.

For more information about storage resources, such as database and data-collection hosting, please see Storage and Data Allocations. Space on storage resources is allocated in terabytes (TB). SDSC's DataCentral site has information on how to write a strong request for storage allocations.

In addition, TeraGrid partners are making a number of data collections available to the community. Researchers interested in making use of those specialized resources should visit the TeraGrid User Info pages.

Interested researchers can now also request support from TeraGrid's ASTA program and similar programs at various TeraGrid sites as part of the LRAC/MRAC process. In POPS, submitters will find the "Advanced Support Program" listed among the available resources. The Advanced Support Program offers collaborations between technology experts at selected TeraGrid Resource Provider institutions and users of TeraGrid computational and data resources to identify and pursue opportunities to improve researchers' codes.

Special proposal requirements apply for these requests. Please see the TeraGrid site for details.

The table below summarizes the three levels of committee: Development Allocations Committee (DAC) for startup allocations, Medium Resource Allocations Committee (MRAC), and Large Resource Allocations Committee (LRAC). All allocations are made for one year, although multi-year awards are possible to experienced PIs to streamline the annual reporting requirements.

Please see the TeraGrid Resource Allocation Policies for guidelines on selecting the committee you should submit your request to and for a description of the review process and criteria. A successful request to the MRAC or LRAC requires a detailed proposal explaining how the resources will be used.

In most cases, investigators should only have one MRAC or LRAC award active at any time. The rare exception would be a researcher or research team conducting separate projects in different fields of science. If submitting more than one proposal, the PI must indicate in each one why they cannot be combined. If the need for separate proposals is not sufficiently explained, the review board may consolidate the proposals and make a single award.

	Resource Limit	Proposals Accepted	Start Dates
Development Allocations Committee (DAC)	0-30,000 SUs 0-5 TB (disk) 0-25 TB (tape)	Proposals accepted at any time and reviewed as they are submitted.	Immediately following successful review.
Medium Resource Allocations Committee (MRAC)	30,001-500,000 SUs 6-25 TB (disk) 26-100 TB (tape)	Jun.18-Jul.13,2007 Sep.17-Oct.12,2007 Dec.2007-Jan.2008 (TBD) Mar.-Apr.2008 (TBD)	Approx. two months after submission, on Apr. 1, July 1, Oct. 1 and Jan. 1.
Large Resource Allocations Committee (LRAC)	500,001 SUs and up 26 TB and up (disk) 101 TB and up (tape)	Jun.18-Jul.13,2007 Dec.2007-Jan.2008 (TBD)	Approx. two months after submission, on Apr. 1 and Oct. 1.

Development Allocations are appropriate for modest computational needs, developing applications, experimenting with various compute platforms, or using TeraGrid systems in classroom instruction. To make a request to the Development Allocation Committee, or DAC, you need (a) to know which resource you’d like access to, (b) to have an estimate of the computing time or storage space you need, up to 30,000 SUs, 5 TB disk or 25 TB tape, and (c) to have a short abstract of your project.

Armed with this knowledge of your eligibility and resource request, go to POPS at POPS Submit.

If do not already have a TeraGrid Portal or POPS login, select "Create POPS login" from the left column to create one and login.

Select "New."
Select the "0 - 30,000 ... " opion and press Continue.
Choose the appropriate DAC ‘meeting’ for the compute platform you’re interested in:

For NCSA resources, select “DAC-NCSA”
For SDSC resources, select “DAC-SDSC”
For TeraGrid resources, select “DAC-TG”

Fill out the required fields in the following sections:

PI Information
Proposal Information
Resource Request

Upload your CV on the Attachments page.
Press “Final Submission” to complete your submission.

That's it. No formal proposal is required. Supporting grant information is helpful but optional. You can "Save to Date" at any time and return later to complete the process. Once it’s reviewed and awarded, usually within two weeks, you’ll receive a packet via U.S. Mail with information you’ll need to get started.

To request larger amounts of computing time, please see the following sections on writing and submitting proposals.

Details for writing a proposal to use any NSF-supported resource are available in the TeraGrid Resource Allocation Policies. You can also review examples of well-written and successful LRAC proposals and MRAC proposals as models for you to follow. In each case, reviewers particularly noted that:

The proposals summarized the research in the context of the current state-of-the-art, outlined the computational algorithms to be used, and related these algorithms to the research subsections.
The reviewers were provided sufficient information but not overwhelmed by details.
Justification for the request was clear and closely coupled to the computational experiments/needs. If the committee needs to reduce the original request, it could be done rationally with minimum disruption to the investigator.
Results from previous allocation awards, including manuscripts published, accepted, submitted, or in preparation, were summarized and related to the request in the current proposal.

Proposals for computing allocations must be submitted electronically via the Partnership Online Proposal System (POPS). This includes allocation requests for all TeraGrid systems. POPS accepts PDF, HTML, Microsoft Word, and PostScript file formats, though PDF format is preferred. If you have never submitted a proposal via POPS before, please follow the steps in the POPS User's Guide as you go through the process. If you are familiar with the process, you may go directly to POPS.

For questions about the allocations process or your allocations request, please send e-mail to allocations@teragrid.org with your question, including the TeraGrid platforms you’re interested in, and one of the allocations officers will be glad to help.