When using the ACOM HPC account, whether for CESM simulations or other modeling uses, please remember you are using a community allocation and we need to balance our usage among many members. Consequently, we have a weekly allocation usage spreadsheet that we use as a community to balance the load. Please follow the guidelines.

Guidelines

  1. Ask to join the acom-hpc email list so you will get notifications and relevant information about using the ACOM account.
  2. Request edit access to the spreadsheet where we add projected usage
  3. Fill in the projected usage request at the beginning of the week
  4. Keep in mind we are a community and help to balance weekly usage to 100% of our allocation distribution

Too much over or under your projected usage can be problematic, leading to overusing or under-using our allocation. Please try to estimate close to what you think you will use.

There are several ways you can determine projected usage:

Method 1 (CESM): Under the $CASEROOT/timing folder in a CESM simulation setup after running a test of the model (e.g., a 5-day simulation), you can find entries for Model Cost and Model Throughput. From those numbers you can estimate the CPU hours necessary for your simulation requirements and then break it up into reasonable weekly requests.

Example CESM simulation timing spreadsheet

Method 2 (overall HPC use): Use the UCAR HPC online usage tracking system https://sam.ucar.edu/

i. Login with DUO/Yubikey
ii. Reports --> My Account Statement
iii. Select "P19010000" by clicking on it --> Then press Detail
iv. Go to the "Derecho" row in the Report Table, and click on "Activity" on the rightmost column.
v. Find your "user name" in the Users Charge Table --> Select your user name by clicking on it --> go to the bottom of the Table and press "View Details"
vi. After a few seconds, a detailed table with the activity of each user is shown on the screen. On the top-right corner there is a CSV link to "export all data"

You can also use this method to check how much you used last week and if it was close to what you projected (and fill in your actual usage in the spreadsheet). If you record your total usage value weekly, the difference between your previous usage and current amount can also be used to project usage for the upcoming week.

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