Information for Prospective SCF Principal Investigators
Any member of the Boston University faculty or academic research staff who requires computational resources for their research may apply for access to the Katana Linux Cluster and the IBM pSeries 655 systems and related Scientific Computing Facilities (SCF). Use of the Scientific Computing Facilities is provided free of charge to all users of the facilities. To access the IBM Blue Gene system you must first obtain a standard SCF account and then follow the instructions on the Blue Gene page. This is done on an individual basis for each researcher. As a principal investigator on a research project you will be responsible for authorizing individual user accounts, requesting and monitoring the computer usage of your group, and updating yearly status reports concerning CPU allocation, funding, and publications related to your research.
As an alternative to this, undergraduate and graduate students interested in using the facilities, but not yet associated with an SCF project, may contact help@scv.bu.edu to inquire about start-up accounts with very small CPU allocations and limited time durations.
Your account will initially have the same password on all of the SCF. If you forget your password and need to have it changed, please contact us.
If other faculty or graduate students are working with you on a project, you will need to add them to your project using the appropriate online forms accessible from the Scientific Computing Facilities Resource Requests page. This application should be filed even for those who may already have an account on the system (because they are working on some other project), so that we can put them into your group. Applications can only be filed by the project principal investigator or authorized administrative contact (who also must be a full-time BU faculty or staff member).
We will assign a project name and UNIX “group ID” to your project. Your project name will be used to identify the project and to record individual usage by members of your team. Please include your project name in all correspondence with us. The UNIX group ID allows you to share files with members of your research team. As a principal investigator you will receive monthly computer usage reports for yourself and the members of your team.
Once a year, you will be asked to fill out a project renewal and allocation request form. We will notify you beginning approximately 60 days prior to your renewal date. If we do not receive the renewal, your project will be marked finished and all accounts associated with only your project will be disabled, and later archived to tape and then removed from the system.
We only accept account and new project requests via the Web. If you have questions, you should send e-mail to scfacct@bu.edu or call Aaron Fuegi at 617-353-8255.