Managing Your Account

Allocations of computer resources are awarded to academic users through the peer-review application process conducted by the SDSC Allocation Committee (see SDSC Allocations for more information). Principal investigators (PIs), those in charge of a research project that will use the computing resources, control allocations. Industrial participants receive their allocations through a cost-sharing program.

The SDSC accounting system tracks all system-resource usage, determines priority-weighted usage charges, and archives the accounting information for any given time period. This document is your guide to making practical use of that accounting system. For Principal Investigators, or those persons in charge of SDSC project allocations, it tells how to manage and monitor allocated resources. For all users, it describes how to check usage. It answers frequently asked questions about charges and allocations, and tells you how to use the various accounting utilities that give information about your SDSC account. A glossary of accounting terms is included at the end.

Accounting System Overview

The reslist command is used to monitor your allocations. reslist will list the account allocation and usage for a given user or account. For example, if your username is "ux12345", you would enter:

reslist -u ux12345

To see what your allocation is and how much you have used. If your account is abc123, you would enter:

reslist -a abc123

reslist units are SUs, where:

1 SU = 1 CPU-hour at normal priority

On DataStar and the TeraGrid IA-64 cluster, there is also the resalloc command, for principal investigators (PIs) only. resalloc allows the PI to set the percentage of SUs in an account to be made available to any particular user of the account. By default, each user starts out being able to use 100% of the allocation.

Allocation Basics

This section describes how allocations are measured, who has control over them, the terms needed to understand how they are organized, when they begin, how much of the allocated resource carries over from one quarter to the next, and what to do when your allocation has been exhausted.

How Charges are Calculated

SDSC allocations are measured in service units (SUs). At normal priority, 1 SU = 1 CPU-hour. In general,

SUs charged = (wall-clock time)*(number of cpus)*priority

Note that compute nodes on DataStar have 8 CPUs each, and are not time-shared among users. Therefore, whether or not you use all eight CPUs on a node, you are charged for all eight. For DataStar, the number of CPUs is the number of nodes times eight.

How Service Unit Charges are Calculated

The SDSC charging algorithm calculates your SU charges by multiplying the CPU time by the charge factor of the queue in which you run your job or by the interactive charge factor.

If you have any questions about this, please contact SDSC Consulting.

Accounting Names and IDs

SDSC assigns each allocated project one or more unique six- or seven-character accounting-group names (e.g., wis245, cla662, sio229a, etc.). The first three characters are alphabetic characters that usually represent the PI's site (for example, "wis" stands for the University of Wisconsin, "cla" for the University of California at Los Angeles, "sio" for Scripp's Institution of Oceanography, etc.); the second three characters are project-identification numbers; and the seventh is an optional character to identify subprojects. For example, the accounting-group name "sio229a" identifies the site (sio), the project (229), and the subproject (a).

Login Names and User IDs

Each accounting group has any number of individual login names explicitly validated to allow people to login to the machines and access their project's allocation. Sometimes these login names are also called user names or user numbers. Login names are based on the e-mail, last name, or first initial, last name provided on the account request (limited to eight characters and dependent upon the user name being unique at SDSC). Each login name also has an associated identification called a user ID (UID). The reslist command will display your UID. Login names and UIDs can be used interchangeably with the SDSC accounting utilities.

SDSC assigns a login name and UID for each person that a PI indicates on his or her User Authorization Form (Form D-np).

Initially, every login name associated with an accounting group has access to the group's entire allocation. To restrict access to the allocation for any of the login names, the PI must use the resalloc utility. Because a single inexperienced user can inadvertently consume the entire allocation in a very short time, we recommend that the PI use resalloc right away.

When an Allocation Begins

For academic users: MRAC allocations begin January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1, and LRAC allocations begin April 1 and October 1. Expedited allocations can begin at any time. Allocations are for a 12-month period. These allocation levels are described in the SDSC Allocations section.

When an Allocation Ends

If your accounting-group allocation has been exhausted, the PI must make another allocation request to the Allocation Committee. This process is described in the SDSC Allocations section.

How Accounts are Charged

You select the scheduling priority for your jobs when you submit them to a batch queue. The queue priority you choose determines how quickly your job will run and the charges deducted from your allocation. The charges will be deducted from the first allocations with active SU's in the groups list, unless otherwise specified in your submission script. The charges are proportional to the priority of the selected queue. For example, if you use a high-priority queue, you can get rapid turnaround, but it is more costly in SUs. See the SDSC User Guides for more queue information. It is important to select your queue carefully, because running your job in the appropriate queue can save you both turnaround time and SUs.

If you would like to charge usage to an account other then your primary group, you can temporarily change the order of your groups list with the newgrp command. To change your default charging allocation permanently please contact SDSC Consulting to have your primary group changed.

Note: All interactive processes are charged two times the amount of CPU time they use (i.e., charge factor 2.0). This charge factor is set so that interactive commands and utilities have quick response time and to encourage the use of the batch system for large, long-running jobs.

Obtaining Allocation Info

reslist gives information about individual user allocations, access to those allocations, and other information contained in the allocation database. Execute reslist by entering its name at the shell prompt. By default, reslist returns your account balance, that is, the amount of time remaining in miniSUs to the login name and project account you are using currently. For example, when you run reslist, it displays something like the following:

ds002 % reslist
Querying database, this may take several seconds ... 

SSTR: All parts of DataStar

                            SU Hours  SU Hours
Name  UID   ACID  ACC PCTG  ALLOCATED USED     USER
jdoe  88888 300   U   100   500000    5000.00  DOE, JOHN
use300      300             500000    450000.00

The fields in this display give the following information:

Name

Login name is typically a character string based on the user's name. The second line shows the project account name (in the example, use300). User jdoe is one of several users who belong to the project account use300.

UID

User ID number assigned by the system.

ACID

Account ID number the system associates with the project account number.

ACC

Privileges name has for the account with which it is associated. For example, the example above shows that jdoe has U privileges for account use300. Privileges can be any of the following:

M: Ability to modify usage limits and management privileges for other users of the account
U: Ability to use the time allocated
I: User is inactivated and has no time available to use in the account

PCTG

Percent of time in the account name can use. (In the example above, user jdoe has access to 100% of the time in account use300.)

SU Hours ALLOCATED

Amount of time allocated to name in SUs. (In the example, user jdoe has 500000 SUs allocated.)

SU Hours USED

Time used in SUs. (In the example, user jdoe has used 5000.00 SUs. The cumulative use to date on project account use300 is 450000.00 SUs out of a total 500000.00 available.)

USER

The user's first and last name.

Manage Allocations with resalloc

resalloc is currently available on DataStar and the TeraGrid IA-64 cluster. On other platforms, users may send mail to allocations@sdsc.edu to have allocations adjusted. resalloc lets principal investigators limit, by percentage, the amount of allocation available to a user in the account. To check whether you do this, enter reslist and look for M under acc in the display.

resalloc is an interactive program and any modification you make with it takes effect immediately. Enter resalloc to start a session and quit to end a session.

Account Management through the TeraGrid Portal

DataStar, BlueGene, and the IA-64 TeraGrid Cluster are all available through the TeraGrid. The TeraGrid User Portal has tools available to manage accounts on these machines.

Log on to the TeraGrid User Portal using the login information mailed to you in the U.S. Mail.
Then, choose the tab titled "MyTeraGrid" for access to account information.

Tools include viewing system account usernames, changing passwords, adding users, and other TeraGrid information.

Frequently Asked Questions

This section lists frequently asked accounting questions and the command lines you enter to find the answers.

Q: How many SUs are allocated to my login and my default accounting group?
A: Enter "reslist" from the command prompt.

Q: How do I find out my accounting group's name or ACID?
A: Enter "reslist" from the command prompt.

Q: How many SUs do I have left?
A: Enter "reslist" from the command prompt.

Q: How many SUs have the users (login names) in my accounting group used?
A: Enter "reslist -a accountname" from the command prompt.

Q: How do I list the users in my accounting group?
A: Enter "reslist -a accountname" from the command prompt.

Q: When do I get my login name?
A: Contact SDSC Consulting if you haven't gotten it within two weeks of your PI's request for it.

Glossary of Accounting Terms

academic user: User with access to an allocation awarded as the result of peer review conducted by the Allocation Committee. As the name implies, these are usually persons affiliated with teaching or research institutions. Compare with industrial partner.
access: Ability to use allocated resources. Access is granted to users by SDSC as requested by the principal investigator awarded the allocation. Limitation of access is assigned by the principal investigator with the resalloc utility.
access codes: Codes assigned by either SDSC or the PI that allow login names associated with an accounting group to access and manage that group's allocation. Codes are U (user), and M (modify). Most login names only have user access.
account ID: (ACID) Code (usually a 4-digit number) assigned to identify an accounting group. May be used in place of the accounting-group name in the SDSC accounting utilities. See accounting-group name. A list of all accounting-group names and their corresponding ACIDs is contained in the file /etc/acid.
accounting group: Group of one or more logins that have access a portion or all of the SUs awarded to a project.
accounting-group name: Unique alphanumeric designation that SDSC uses to identify each accounting group. Usually consists of three alphabetic characters to identify the site; three numbers to indicate the project; and an optional seventh letter to identify subprojects.
allocation: Computer resources, measured in service units (SUs), awarded to academic users or purchased by industrial partners.
allocation period: Period of time in which the allocated resources can be used. For MRAC academic users, periods start the first day of each quarter (i.e., on January 1, April 1, July 1, and October l) and end 12 months later. LRAC academic users start the first day of April or October and end 12 months later.
batch job: Program executed non-interactively from a specific batch queue.
batch queue: Mechanism for scheduling jobs according to the resources requested and running them when those resources are available.
charge factor: Value associated with a queue and which is based on a queue's priority (ranges from 1 to 2.0). Usage charges for jobs run in a particular queue are multiplied by that queue's charge factor. Compare with priority.
industrial partner: User who has access to an allocation that is a part of a cost-sharing program with private industry. Compare with academic user.
job: Collection of programs submitted to the system for execution. See batch job.
login name: Alphanumeric code assigned to authorized users. Needed to login to computers. Typically a character string based on a user's name. Sometimes called user name or user number. Compare with user ID.
PI: See principal investigator.
principal investigator: (PI) Person in charge of the research project that will use the computing resources, and the person who controls the allocation; the PI decides how the allocation is to be divided and authorizes other individuals to be users of the resources.
priority: Value associated with a queue that gives you some control (via choice of queue) over the responsiveness of the system. Priorities are high and normal.
process: System execution of a program.
project: Accounting term for an allocated research project. Each project has one or more accounting groups associated with it. Each quarter the SUs awarded to a project are allocated to one or more of the accounting groups.
queue priority: Priority associated with a specific queue. Determines the rate at which a job will run and the associated cost.
resalloc: SDSC utility that allows principal investigators to modify accounting-group parameters.
reslist: SDSC utility that reports allocation information about individual user logins, accounting-group access, and other information contained in the resource database.
resources: 1. System resources; i.e., CPU, disk, memory, etc. 2. Center resources; i.e., machines, peripherals, and services available to those with an SDSC allocation.
service unit: (SU) Unit used to allocate use of computer resources, roughly equivalent to one hour of CPU time.
SU: See preceding item.
subproject: Subdivision of an accounting group (project).
user access: Code assigned by SDSC or the PI to allow a login name access to an accounting group's allocation.
user authorization form: Form principal investigators fill out to advise SDSC Operations what users to authorize for access to their allocations. Also called Form D-np.
user ID: (UID) Number assigned to an authorized user. May be used in place of the login name in many utilities. See login name.
user name: Same as login name.