Usage of a HPC cluster

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Here we collect some general (and by no means complete) information about usage and policies of a HPC cluster.

Structure of a HPC cluster

The structure of a HPC system is sketched in the picture above. These are the main logical building blocks:

• a 'login node' is exposed to users for access (typically via ssh),
• a dedicated 'scheduler' (the 'queuing system') dispatches computational jobs to the 'compute nodes'
• computation happens therefore asynchronously, and not on the login node.
• a specific 'software environment' is provided on the login node and on the compute node to run parallel jobs

Connecting

Unless other means are provided, you typically connect using the ssh protocol.

From a shell terminal or a suitable app:

 ssh -Y <user>@<machine_host_name>  or
 ssh -Y -l <user> <machine_host_name>

 <user>:  Unix username on the cluster login node