Access

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User account requests

To create new user or lab accounts, please follow these instructions:

  • Please email user account requests to support@hpcc.ucr.edu. Include the full name, NetID and email address of both users and PI. Users need to be members of the PI’s group. Preferentially, user account requests should come from the corresponding PI directly. If the request comes from a new user then the PI needs to be CC’ed in the email exchange.
  • If a PI’s lab is not registered yet, please provide in the same email a COA (formerly FAU) required to pay for the annual subscription fee, the email of your financial advisor, and optionally any additional data storage (see here). If additional storage is needed, mention how much and the COA to be used for the additional recharge.

After receiving the access information for a new account, users want to follow the login instructions here.

Recharging rates

HPCC’s recharging rate structure is outlined below. A more formal summary is available in the most recent Recharging Rate PDF here.

PI-based Registration Fee

An annual registration fee of $1,000 gives all members of a UCR lab access to our high-performance computing infrastructure. The registration provides access to the following resources:

  • Over 16,000 CPU cores (60% AMD and 40% Intel), ~230,000 cuda cores (Nvidia A100, H100, A6000 Ada, RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell, P100 and K80 GPUs), ~6PB parallel GPFS-based disk space, 512GB-1TB of memory/node, etc. More details are available on the hardware pages.
  • Over 1000 software packages and community databases. Details are available on the software page.
  • Free attendance of workshops offered by HPCC staff
  • Free consultation services (up to 1 hour per month)
  • Note: there is no extra charge for CPU usage but each user and lab have CPU quotas of 384 and 768 CPU cores, respectively. Computing jobs exceeding these quotas can be submitted but will stay in a queued state until resources within the quota limits become available.

Big data storage

For data storage the HPCC uses a central parallel GPFS storage system that scales to many thousands of TBs. This high-availability storage system is directly attached (mounted) to all its CPU and GPU nodes, meaning users can immediately process their data with high-performance computing hardware without moving them from one location (e.g. a data archival system) to another.

  • Rented big data storage

    • Standard user accounts have a storage quota of 50 GB. To gain access to much larger storage pools, PIs have the option to rent or own storage space.

    • Storage rental option

      • $1000 per 10TB of usable and backed up storage space per year. Smaller units than 10TB are also available (e.g. 100GB units). For details see here. In comparison, the maintenance cost for the same amount of owned storage is $260 per year (see below).
      • Since the HPCC backs up all user data and uses snapshotting as an additional data security measure, 10TB of usable backed up space is the equivalent of almost 30TB of raw disk space. Thus, the cost for rented storage is $33.33 for 1TB/yr raw disk space.
      • User account and big data backups are performed monthly and stored long-term, or as long as users maintain their storage subscriptions and/or owned hard drives are not older than seven years. To prevent the accumulation of unwanted data which is very costly, any data deleted by users in their user account or bigdata will also be removed from the backup system. To retrieve recent unwanted changes to data, previous snapshots can be used assuming data was there before the snapshot. This allows retrieval of recently deleted files. More info on snapshots can be found here.
      • The rented storage pool can be shared among all user accounts of a registered lab.

Ownership models

  • Owned big data storage

    • A lab/PI purchases storage hardware (e.g. hard drives) according to the specifications of the facility. Owned hard drives will be added to the facility’s parallel GPFS storage systems including production and backup storage. There is no extra charge for the additional storage infrastructure required for operation, including hard drive enclosures (servers) and high-speed network. The annual support fee for owned disk storage is $260 per 10TB of usable and backed up storage space. Since we back everything up to a secondary server room and use snapshotting as an additional data security measure, 10TB of usable backed up space is the equivalent of almost 30TB of raw disk space. Thus, the maintenance cost for owned storage is $8.67 for 1TB/yr raw disk space. Note, owned storage space is only available to the users of a PI’s group or those a PI wishes to give access to.
    • The owned storage pool can be shared among all user accounts of a registered lab.
    • Owned storage can be attractive for labs with storage needs above 40TBs. For smaller amounts the rental option is often a better and more flexible choice (e.g. available within a few days).
    • Due to the pooled nature of our storage, PIs should not expect the ability of retrieving the individual drives purchased for cluster use, nor that their data is stored on their exact drives. GPFS is a shared pool of storage, and data will end up stored across multiple disks.

  • Computer nodes

    • A lab or PI may purchase compute nodes that meet HPCC hardware and networking requirements. Available configurations include high-density CPU and GPU systems equipped with current-generation Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA processors, large-memory configurations, local NVMe storage, and high-speed InfiniBand networking.
    • Owned nodes are integrated into the HPCC cluster and administered through a priority-queueing model that provides members of the owner laboratory with high-priority access. The laboratory’s applicable CPU or GPU resource quota is increased according to the capacity of its owned systems. To maximize the utilization of computing hardware and server-room infrastructure, idle capacity may be used for short jobs submitted by other registered users while preserving scheduling priority for the owner laboratory. HPCC provides rack space, power, cooling, standard system administration, and operational maintenance for integrated compute nodes without an additional hosting or compute-node maintenance fee.
    • The ownership model is an attractive and cost-effective option for laboratories requiring continuous, high-priority access to substantial CPU or GPU capacity with minimal queueing delays. It also provides immediate integration with HPCC’s high-speed networking, central storage, extensive software environment, and professionally maintained research-computing infrastructure.

Software install

  • Registered users can email software install requests to HPCC’s issue tracking system @ support@hpcc.ucr.edu. Install requests are addressed in the order received. Simple installs are addressed within 1 to a few days. Complex installs may take longer.

Department cluster membership with owned computing nodes

This option addresses the need of department-level HPC access where the standard PI-based membership is not practical, e.g. provide cluster access to large number of undergraduate students in classes. Under this model a department purchases computer nodes that will be administered similarly as described above under the Ownership model. Due to the large number of expected users from departments, the CPU quota per user is usually lower compared to the PI-based model.

Using HPCC cluster for classes

To use the HPCC cluster for teaching UCR classes, please coordinate with the systems administrators (support@hpcc.ucr.edu) at least 4 weeks prior to the start of a class so that there is enough time for planning. Details that need be discussed includes the number of user accounts required, special software requirements, creation of a class-specific Slurm partition, data storage reservations, as well as other needs that may vary for different classes.

External user accounts

Accounts for external customers can only be granted if a lab has a strong affiliation with UC Riverside, such as a research collaboration with UCR researchers. Both the corresponding UCR PI and external collaborator need to maintain an HPCC subscription. External accounts are subject to an annual review and approval process. To be approved, the external and internal PIs have to complete this External Usage Justification.

An exception applies if the external user holds a UCR affiliate account (e.g. visiting scholars, affiliates, or non-salaried positions), in which case a standard account can be requested. More information about UCR affiliate accounts is available here.

Trial Accounts

If you’re not sure if the HPCC might work for your use case, we can offer limited-compute accounts to allow for you to test the performance and compatability of your software. A limited number of trial accounts can be created for a lab, with access to limited compute compared to a standard account. Please reach out to HPCC support if you’re interested in a trial account.

Facility description

  • The latest hardware/facility description (e.g. for grant applications) is available here.
Last modified June 22, 2026: typo (f2aeae3d3)