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About HPC at UMD

Overview

  • The Division of Information Technology (DIT) is the central IT organization at the university. DIT offers IT solutions to the administrative, academic, and research communities at UMD.
  • The small team of HPC engineers is a part of the Advanced Cyber Infrastructure and Internet Global Services (ACIGS) unit within DIT.
  • The Allocations and Advisory Committee (AAC) oversees fair and equitable allocation of HPC resources and reviews HPC applications.
  • Division of Research supports and advances the campus research enterprise.

Governance:

Allocations and Advisory Committee

The AAC consists of UMD faculty members with significant experience in high-performance computing. They are knowledgeable in the HPC concepts in general and are familiar with the UMD's HPC resources.

The Allocations and Advisory Committee serves dual roles. First, it provides oversight and develops policy on the deployment and use of the University of Maryland HPC clusters. Second, the committee is responsible for allocating time on the clusters. The committee solicits and reviews allocation requests, and approves and prioritizes proposals. Criteria used in making such determinations include appropriateness of the clusters for the intended computation, the specific hardware and/or software requested, a researcher's prior experience with high-performance computing, the track record of a requestor who has received HPCC allocations in the past, and the overall merits of the research itself.

Allocations and Advisory Committee members

  • Jeffery Klauda (ENGR-Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering), Chair
  • Johan Larsson (ENGR-Mechanical Engineering)
  • Massimo Ricotti (CMNS-Astronomy)
  • Xiaopeng Song (BSOS-Geography)
  • Vijay Tiwari (AGNR-Plant Science & Landscape Architecture)
  • Pratyush Tiwary (CMNS-Chemistry/IPST)

Division of Information Technology

The HPC clusters are operated and maintained by DIT personnel. All DIT systems are governed by the University's AUP and DIT's IT Policies, Standards & Guidelines. Moreover, there are other rules and guidelines that specifically govern the HPC cluster usage.

Division of Research

The Division of Research at UMD has a mission to support and advance the impact, scale, and visibility of research on the UMD campus, as well as developing and implementing policies regarding such research and ensuring compliance with various policies and regulations.

As HPC resources are a major tool for research on campus, the campus HPC clusters fall under the auspices of the Division of Research, as well as being a significant source of funding for these clusters.

History of HPC at DIT/UMD:

Building the Zaratan Cluster

UMD HPC at SuperComputing