This page provides information and links, including management tools, for those participating in the Research Computing Buy-in Program. This includes both owners of Buy-in equipment and authorizers on equipment purchased by others. Buy-in owners can purchase either Computing nodes or Storage space, which are bought and managed independently.

Current Buy-in Computing and Storage owners and authorizers can access information about their Buy-in equipment from their personalized SCC Management Page.

Buy-in Computing

Each Buy-in Compute Group determines the policies (such as how long jobs can run) that apply to the compute nodes they purchased. Shared jobs will sometimes run on Buy-in Compute hardware when that equipment is not in use by the member projects with priority access. When this happens, the Buy-in Compute group member projects will generally automatically receive SU credits each month for this reclaimed usage by other SCC users. A Buy-in Compute Group report is available to authorizers for each Buy-in group with information on your purchased nodes, which projects have priority access, queue settings, and lots of information on the usage of your equipment.

Buy-in Compute Group authorizers can request changes to the list of authorizers, the list of projects with priority access, and the queue time limits. Let us know, via email to help@scc.bu.edu, if you would like to change any of these.

Buy-in Storage

In September 2015, the infrastructure and forms enabling Buy-in Storage Pool authorizers to manage their Pool(s) were introduced.

Definitions: Owners, Authorizers, and Storage Pools

  • Owner – The Purchaser(s) of Buy-in Storage space on the Shared Computing Cluster (SCC). Buy-in Storage is available only for the nb partitions, /projectnb and /restricted/projectnb as well as on the two /stash partitions.
  • Authorizer – The person(s) appointed by the owner to manage the allocation of the Storage space among projects on the SCC.
  • Storage Pool – The structure for managing Buy-in Storage Space. A Pool name will be assigned at the time of the initial purchase. A given storage Pool can consist of multiple purchases and allocations can be made to multiple projects. A given owner or authorizer can be involved with multiple Pools.

Pool Management Form (for Pool Authorizers)

The Pool authorizer(s) can manage the Pool’s allocations using the Storage Pool management web form. The form functions as both a report and management tool for a single Pool. It includes the owner(s), authorizer(s), the total purchased amount, total allocated amount, the list of purchases comprising the Pool including their expiration dates, and information on any Loaner space. Also included is the breakdown of the allocations from the Pool; each project and partition is listed with the current Pool allocation, a box for typing in a change amount, and for reference, the project’s total quota and the current usage in each partition. The form also includes space for granting allocations to additional projects not already listed. When entering a change amount, a warning will be triggered when an authorizer reduces an allocation enough to put the project over quota.

Project Disk Management Form (for LPIs)

The Request additional Free/Buy-in Project Disk/stash allocation web form has been updated and is now a powerful reporting tool as well as a Project Disk Space management tool; it now includes a breakdown of allocated space from each Pool on each partition. There is a separate form for each Project you manage and LPIs (and optional IT/Administrative Contacts) can access it on their SCC Management Page.

Note that LPIs, who are not also an authorizer for a given Buy-in Pool, can freely decrease an allocation from that Pool, but will need approval from the authorizer for an increase or an initial allocation. The authorizer can use their Buy-in Pool form to make the change. If an LPI should request an increase in an allocation, RCS staff will contact the Pool authorizer(s) for approval.

Additional information on managing Project Disk Space is available on the Project Management web page. Also, general information on Project Disk Space is available.

Please send email to help@scc.bu.edu with any questions and requests for assistance.