Allocations

To access a system, you must submit an allocation request.

TACC enables the research and education of the computational science community at UT and its partners by providing access to advanced computing technologies. TACC's unique and valuable resources include high-performance computing, scientific visualization and data storage systems. The policies and procedures we have implemented to ensure a fair and efficient allocation of these resources are described below.

All TACC resources are allocated on a project basis to a single principal investigator (PI). Faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and research staff can serve as TACC project PIs. Graduate and undergraduate students should have their advisor assume the responsibilities of project PI and submit the allocations request..

TACC's Acceptable Use Policies

The PI is responsible for ensuring that all users on the allocation use TACC resources in accordance with the TACC's Acceptable Use Policies. Failure to do so can result in immediate cancellation of the allocations and account suspension.

TACC Documentation

All users should familiarize themselves with TACC's Compute Resource User Guides to learn about the resources best suited to your computational needs.

Eligibility

Faculty, staff, and postdoctoral researchers at UT Austin, UT System, TACC partner institutions, and Texas higher educational institutions may request PI eligibility through the NSF-funded ACCESS or Frontera projects. Graduate and undergraduate students should have their advisors assume the responsibilities of project PI who will submit the allocations request. Academic researchers from other US institutions must request allocations via the ACCESS portal.

The TACC industrial affiliates program, Science and Technology Affiliates for Research (STAR), also provides allocations on TACC resources.

Requesting an Allocation

The TACC Resource Allocation System (TxRAS) handles allocation requests for current and future TACC resources from Texas researchers.

Apply on TxRAS

ACCESS is for all other US academic researchers.

Apply on ACCESS

To access Frontera, please read the Frontera Allocations Guidelines.

Frontera Allocations

If you are an industry professional, apply to our STAR program.

Managing Allocations

After approval, the PI can manage their allocation on this portal by logging in and and going to Projects and Allocations.

Within projects, the PI can add their team and request additional allocation increases.

PIs can assign Delegates to manage their allocation for them. Delegates can add and remove users to a project and request allocation increases.

Allocation Opportunities

TACC offers three types of project allocations: Startup, Educational, and Research. A resource justification document will be required when applying for resources. The document should be in PDF form and include a description of the research being conducted and how TACC computation resources will impact this research. It should also describe the scientific applications to be used, and an estimated plan or table justifying the number of node-hours being requested.

Read this example to better understand how this document should be written.

Startup

Startup projects are meant to provide the PI with an adequate allocation to build a case for a Research or Educational project. Startup projects will typically receive small allocations with short durations.

PIs can apply for a Startup project allocation at any time.

Educational

Educational project allocations support academic classes, with limited allocation sizes and only on certain TACC resources.

Educational project allocations will last for the duration of the class plus 14 days.

Research

Research project allocations support the computational needs of the scientific community. Research project allocations begin on calendar quarters, are normally for one year, and must be renewed annually for multi-year projects. Requests for new research allocations and renewals must be submitted 30 days prior to the start of the allocation period. Requests submitted after the due date will be considered for the next allocation period. PIs can apply for startup project allocations until the next research project quarterly deadline.

Research Allocation Request Deadlines

Research allocation requests are reviewed four times per year according to the following schedule of deadlines.

Allocation Period	New/Renewal Request Due
January 1 - Dec 31	December 1
April 1 - March 31	March 1
July 1 - June 30	June 1
October 1 - September 31	September 1

Allocation Project Limits

When applying for an allocation on an HPC or Visualization system, you will be asked to estimate the number of service units (SUs) you will require for the project. SUs are calculated based on the wall-clock time of your jobs (measured in hours) and the number of nodes, depending on the system, used to run a job. Each job run on the resource consumes the SUs allocated to a project.

All the TACC resources listed below calculate Service Units (SUs) in terms of node-hours. Specialty nodes, such as GPU's, may be charged an additional multiplier.

SUs charged = (Number of nodes) X (job wall-clock time) X (multiplier).

Request Limits Per Resource

System	Startup SUs	Educational SUs	Research SUs
Stampede2	2,100	2,100	21,000
Lonestar6	500	500	Up to 100,000
Maverick2	200	200	2,100
Frontera	CPU: 5,000 GPU: 3,000	See Frontera Allocations	See Frontera Allocations

Data Storage

Default Storage

All users of active projects automatically receive an allocation of 2 TB and 50 thousand files on Ranch, TACC’s data archive system, and a 1TB allocation on the Stockyard (/work) global file system.

We do not grant requests for increase on these individual allocations; however, you may request a larger common allocation for your project through the TACC portal request process. Researchers are encouraged to request a formal Ranch allocation if they plan to use Ranch for anything other than small-scale backup of working files.

Protected Data

The Corral storage system stores both normal and secure data that is subject to special restrictions. Corral-Secure allocations require additional documentation to ensure that appropriate protections and agreements are in place. You can initiate that process via the form on the Protected Data Service page. Consult the Corral User Guide for more details on storage limitations, costs and protected data types.

Storage Limitations

Each storage allocation includes limits on both file count and total size, as these are separate limited resources within each system. All TACC storage allocations last for one year by default, and you will need to plan to renew annually for multi-year projects. You may request an allocation increase partway through the allocation period but these must be independently reviewed and approved. Allocation quantities are not cumulative. You must ask for the amount you need each year; asking for 5TB in year one and 5TB in year 2 results in an allocation of 5TB in year 2, not 10TB.

Scientific Visualization and Analysis

Each TACC large-scale system allocation has access to visualization and analysis resources on that system, including remote desktops (VNC and DCV), Jupyter notebooks and RStudio. These resources can be accessed using command-line scripts or through the TACC Analysis Portal.

TACC Analysis Portal

TACC operates a production Visualization Laboratory (Vislab) on the main campus of UT Austin in the Peter O’Donnell building (POB lab) and an experimental visualization laboratory at TACC’s main office complex at the UT Pickle Research Campus (ACB lab). While you do not need a separate allocation to use the Vislab, we ask that new users complete a training session on lab use.

Users may schedule training and POB lab reservations via the Vislab Reservations page. The ACB lab is intended for exploratory and prototype visualization work. Submit a consulting ticket if you are interested in working with the ACB lab.