Need access to compute resources beyond your desktop to support your sponsored or departmental research?  You may want to try out the Stanford Sherlock cluster.   Purchased and supported with seed funding from the Provost, Sherlock comprises 127 compute servers and associated storage.  Those 127 servers are available to run researchers' computational codes and programs, with resources managed through a fair-share algorithm using SLURM as the resource manager/job scheduler. 

Faculty can also purchase additional dedicated resources to augment Sherlock by becoming Sherlock "owners".  Choosing from a standard set of server configurations supported by the SRCC staff, owners' servers are "joined" to the base Sherlock cluster.  "Owners" have access to the base cluster as before, through fair-share.  But they also have priority access to the resources they purchased, whenever they want.  When an owner's servers aren't in use, other owners can use them ... but non-owners cannot.  The base Sherlock configuration is 125 servers; since June 2014, an additional 220 servers have been added by owners.

You can learn more about Sherlock by visiting http://sherlock.stanford.edu . 

But what else might you use, beyond Sherlock?

There are a variety of compute clusters run by Stanford schools and departments. For example, the Stanford Research Computing Center (SRCC) manages HPC clusters for the Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine,  the Army HPC Research Center, and the School of Humanities & Sciences, as well as for individual PIs or labs.  If you are from one of those units, drop us a note at research-computing-support@stanford.edu and we can get you started.  If you are from another school or group at Stanford and need help, we can suggest options and talk with you about our services.

The SRCC also offers access to a small shared campus HPC resource, FarmShare.  Open to anyone with a SUNet ID, FarmShare is intended to be a short-term, low-intensity computational resource for students, courses and researchers who are just getting started with computing.   FarmShare is the resource to use for classes or instruction; Sherlock is limited to research only.

See farmshare.stanford.edu for the details on how to try it out.

Overview

The Stanford Research Computing Facility (SRCF) provides the campus research community with data center facilities designed specifically to host high performance computing equipment. Supplementing the renovated area of the Forsythe data center, the SRCF is intended to meet Stanford’s research computing needs for the coming years.    A Stanford building located on the SLAC campus, the SRCF was completed in the fall of 2013, with production HPC services being offered as of December 2013.  The facility and services therein are managed by the Stanford Research Computing Center (SRCC).

Capabilities

Space and Power: The SRCF has 3 megawatts of power and can host 150 racks.  While this implies an average rack density of 20kW, the infrastructure can support higher-density compute racks with power consumption requirements from 20 to 100 kW each. Of the estimated 150 racks, 25 compute racks will be for SLAC, 50 for the School of Medicine, and 75 for Stanford’s non-formula schools. 

The SRCF has a resilient but not redundant power infrastructure. The transmission grade power, delivered to SLAC and the SRCF, is UPS and generator protected, providing significant assurance should there be a regional power outage.

Cooling: The building’s design is non-traditional and especially energy efficient. The facility is cooled with ambient air fan systems for 90% of the year. For the hotter days and for equipment needing chilled water, high-efficiency air cooled chillers are available.

Network Connectivity:  The SRCF has multiple redundant 10 gigabit networks linking it to the campus backbone, the Internet, Internet2 and other national research networks.  In the fall of 2014, 100 gigabit network connectivity will also be provided between the SRCF and external networks. That bandwidth, coupled with the use of OpenFlow communications protocol (developed at Stanford) will provide unprecedented flexibility and capability in meeting the network transport needs of the research communities using the facility.

Service Models

Three service models are supported at the SRCF.

1. Hosting:  a researcher purchases his/her own rack, PDUs and equipment and works with the SRCC to coordinate installation timing and access. The researcher is responsible for the management and system administration of the equipment.  Equipment must be replaced with new equipment, or removed from the facility, before or when the equipment is 5 years old.   Note that some schools, such as H&S, have purchased empty racks and PDUs on behalf of their faculty, recognizing that not all researchers will purchase entire racks of equipment at one time.
2. Supported cluster:  a researcher purchases his/her own rack, PDUs and equipment, and works with the SRCC to coordinate installation timing and access.  The researcher pays the SRCC to provide system administration and support.  Equipment must be replaced with new equipment, or removed from the facility, before or when the equipment is 5 years old.
3. Shared cluster:  The Provost provided the SRCC with capital funding to purchase computing equipment to encourage faculty to use the SRCF and the shared SRCC cluster model.  This incentive represents access to additional HPC resources beyond those funded by grants and may greatly expand researchers’ computing capacity.     The cluster purchased with those funds, Sherlock, is available for the use of any Stanford faculty member, and associated research teams, for his/her sponsored or departmental research.  The base configuration of 125 servers is shared by all.     Beyond using the base Sherlock platform, researchers can use their grant funds to add more servers and storage, choosing from a standard set of configurations.  Purchased and managed by the SRCC, these PI-funded servers become part of the Sherlock cluster, but not available to the entire user base.  PIs who follow this model are referred to as "owners".  Owners have access to the servers they purchased, but they also can use other owners' servers when they are idle.  At the present time, system administration and support of all components of the Sherlock cluster - whether base servers or owers' servers - is funded by the Dean of Research and Provost.  In the future, modest fees may be charged  for system administration and support.

Note that the SRCF has been designed for hosting high-density racks.  Toward this end, vendor pre-racked equipment is the preferred method for deployment.   Hosting preference will be given to those researchers with high density, full racks of equipment, in order to make best use of the resources.

For more information

Contact Ruth Marinshaw, ruthm@stanford.edu

Campus resources are varied, and are growing. They may well meet your needs.  But what if you need more compute, need to run larger jobs, need to manipulate more data than local systems can accommodate?  The SRCC can help link you to national compute resources, such as the OpenScience Grid and the NSF-funded XSEDE program.  Or help you decide whether cloud computing could/should be in your portfolio of compute platforms.  Contact us at research-computing-support@stanford.edu and let's start the conversation.