Grinnell College faculty and student researchers have access to a High Performance Compute cluster that is supported by Information Technology Services. The cluster has been funded by the Innovation Fund, the Chemistry Department, research funding from Charlotte Christiansen in Physics, and Information Technology Services. Faculty seeking to acquire compute resources with research funding are encouraged to consider applying the funding to build additional resources into the cluster so that it can be a more useful resource to the whole campus.

1. Contact Mike Conner [connerms] to request an account on the cluster.
2. Include information in your request about what software you plan to use on the cluster and any other specific needs you have.
3. Follow the User Quick Start guide to get started submitting jobs to the scheduler.

In some cases additional software must be installed or users will need a unique development environment in which to build software. A small test cluster is available for determining and testing new configurations. Individuals can work with ITS to find the best way to create the right environment on the test cluster, then deploy that environment to the production cluster.

We have found that creating containers with Apptainer (formerly Singularity) is the most convenient and portable way to build an environment with all the tools needed for a particular research use case.

Currently the cluster is used primarily by the following individuals and research groups:

- Chemistry Department (WebMO, NBO6, Gaussian) - Physics Department (Charm++, NetGen) - Computer Science (various)

Components and Technical Specifications