Transition from Summit to Alpine
Alpine is now open to all CSU users. If you are a current Summit user, you do not need to request an account for Alpine, you automatically have access.
Get Started with AlpineThis documentation is intended for users of the Summit High Performance Computer system, a joint activity of Colorado State University (CSU) and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU). Summit is housed at, and operated by, CU IT staff. The emphasis in this manual is for new CSU users. Some of the information presented herein is particular to CSU’s environment and some is pertinent to CU’s environment, as Summit resides on the CU network and behind the CU IT security infrastructure. All user and application support for CSU users are performed by Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs) resident at CSU or CU staff dedicated to CSU user support. CU staff provide all system administration support. All Summit help requests should be directed to rc-help@colorado.edu and will be directed accordingly.
The Summit High-Performance Computing (HPC) system was established under NSF MRI Award #1532235 to both CSU and CU. The $3.55 million systems was awarded under the auspices of the Rocky Mountain Advanced Computing Consortium (RMACC), an activity in which ISTeC at CSU participates. ISTeC coordinated the proposal for CSU. The system went into full production on February 2, 2017. Summit allocations are partitioned in proportion to the amount invested by each institution, with 10% reserved for the RMACC, as follows: RMACC – 10% of the total; CSU – 25% of the remaining 90% = 22.5% of the total; CU – 75% of the remaining 90% = 67.5% of the total. Allocations are approximately on a “use it or lose it” basis monthly, and are somewhat oversubscribed to allow users who need additional resources within a month to use resources available from other users with unused resources in that month. The initial large Summit system has since been augmented with nodes under the “condo” model, where users buy into add additional nodes to the system that they own. Additionally, the Summit system has been augmented with a small Knights Landing system, using Intel’s Many Integrated Cores (MIC) technology.
System Specifications
The Summit system architecture is comprised of general compute nodes, GPU compute nodes, high-memory compute nodes and Phi nodes. For detailed information on the system, see the CU Boulder Research Computing resources page.
Allocations
Allocations of time on Summit are based on Service Units (SU) and CPU core-hours as follows:
1 SU = 1 CPU core-hour (i.e., a single fully utilized CPU core on 1 compute node for 1 hour)
CSU users as a whole have an allocation of roughly 25% of the total SUs/yr for Summit (21,996,360 SU/yr)
New users:
All new summit users will be added to the csu-general allocation, which amounts to about 50,000 SU/yr.
Allocations:
If users require additional compute resources, they can apply for an allocation. We strongly encourage users to apply for an allocation once they have a sense of how many core hours their project requires.
To apply for an allocation, please email rc2-request@colostate.edu. The Summit Management and Allocations Review Committee will review and assess these applications and respond within 1 week on the status of the request.
Templates
The following statement may be used for Summit Acknowledgements:
“This work utilized the RMACC Summit supercomputer, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards ACI-1532235 and ACI-1532236), the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University. The RMACC Summit supercomputer is a joint effort of the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University.”
The following document includes information that may be used for grants, RFPs and other solicitations: Information for Grants and Proposals