Resources for NDSU Faculty
Eligibility
Any NDSU faculty member or PhD research staff member may request a CCAST Project with themselves as PI. Projects may include members who are students and/or collaborators from other institutions, though those without an NDSU ID will require a separate registration step (see <URL>). Each CCAST project must however, have a PI who is an NDSU faculty member or PhD research staff member.
Each PI may have one (1) CCAST Project free of charge. Additional CCAST Projects are available to PIs at an additional fee (see table below for charges).
CCAST Project Definition
Each CCAST Project is assigned the following resources and abilities:
- A CCAST group created with membership under the PI's control for purposes of sharing Project resources
- 1 TB of Project storage on the CCAST GPFS parallel file system to be shared among Project members
- Access to the GPFS SCRATCH parallel file system for shared temporary data storage among all CCAST users/projects.
- The ability to request software module installation at the CCAST system level.
- Consulting time with CCAST staff.
- Regular usage reports summarizing CCAST resource utilization by the Project (work in progress)
- The ability to submit jobs to the Open Science Grid ( currently only supported through OSG Connect)
- Access to the CCAST Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs) for file transfer services
CCAST Service Fees
(Services current as of 1 June 2019. Fees are subject to change.)
| CCAST Service | Baseline Usage (included free with CCAST Project) | Additional NDSU Usage Fee | Additional External Usage Fee |
| Batch Access to Thunder | Fairshare access to public queues | ~$15K per condo unit (actual costs) | $TBD per condo unit |
| Home space on CCAST clusters | 200 GB backed up storage | Additional space by application <URL> | $TBD/TB/year |
| Project space on CCAST clusters | 1 TB backed up storage | Additional space by application <URL> | $TBD/TB/year |
| SCRATCH space on CCAST clusters | Fairshare access with a 60 day retention period | Additional space by application <URL> | $TBD/TB/month |
| Software Module installation | 1 modules/month with 2 year lease on module space | Additional modules on best effort basis | $TBD/module/year |
| CCAST Consulting Time (Staff) | 1 week/year for non-system issues (on best effort basis) | $10K/FTE-Month (staff) | $TBD/hr (1 day minimum) |
| CCAST Consulting Time (Student) | TBD access (on best effort basis) | $YYY/month ( 1 month minimum, YYY hr avg/month) | $2YYY/month (3 month minimum, YYY hr avg/month) |
| Data Transfer outside NDSU.EDU | Fairshare access (on best effort basis) | $YYY/TB | $2YYY/TB |
NB: All CCAST services are offered on a best effort basis with no response guarantee outside NDSU Normal Business Hours. Until CCAST growth allows, users who required a specific service level agreement (SLA) will be referred to CCAST partner organizations.