Condo Details

Condo Computing Program

Condo computing is a shared ownership model in which researchers use equipment purchase funds from grants or other sources to purchase and contribute compute servers (i.e., nodes) to the system. The result is a researcher-owned computing resource of medium to large proportions that provides access to much larger configurations than each participant purchased individually.

Under the TSCC condo program, researchers use equipment purchase funds to buy compute (CPU or GPU) nodes that will be operated as part of the cluster. Participating researchers may then have dedicated use of their purchased nodes, or they may run larger computing jobs by sharing idle nodes owned by other researchers. The main benefit is access to a much larger cluster than would typically be available to a single lab.

Participation in the program runs nominally for five years (the duration of equipment warranty).

Compute Resources Available for Purchase

The following tables summarize the CPU and GPU nodes that are available for purchase in the year 2022-2023 to participate in the TSCC condo program. Our approved vendors are Dell and Supermicro. The node costs are estimates; actual prices will vary with market conditions.

CPU Nodes

GPU Nodes

Service Fees

A one-time system setup fee per node is required to cover the purchase of shared components (racks, network switches, cables, etc.). Researchers also pay a monthly operations fee for each of their purchased nodes. This fee covers labor to maintain the system, utilities, software licenses and other maintenance costs.

Warranty

Typically five years with next business day on-site service. At the end of the period, participants must take possession or surplus their equipment. Obtaining any enclosures, switches, cables, and other ancillary components necessary to make removed nodes operational in a new location is the responsibility of the research group.

Time-sharing on Condo Nodes

Each year, condo cluster participants will receive an allocation of cluster computing time proportional to the capacity of their purchased nodes. This amount is based on 24x365 usage of the purchased node allowing for 3% maintenance downtime. Unused computing time expire at the end of each year.

Condo jobs that require cores less than or equal to their purchased nodes are guaranteed to start within eight hours of submission. Jobs that extend to other participants’ condo nodes have an eight–hour time limit. Beyond 8 hours, the jobs are subjected to immediate preemption if the nodes where they are running are needed to run higher–priority jobs.

Please refer to the TSCC User Guide for further information on node usage, queues and time limits.