New National Systems Coming Online Soon – Activation of 2017 allocations slightly postponed

Delays in the commissioning of new Compute Canada systems are causing a slight postponement of the activation of 2017 ressource allocations for all systems, including Calcul Québec’s pre-2016 systems.

As part of the national advanced research computing infrastructure renewal Compute Canada has undertaken, three new systems are coming online: Arbutus, a cloud system, and two general purpose clusters, namely Graham (sometimes referred to as GP3) and Cedar (also known as GP2).

To ensure a seamless transition, the new systems have to be ready for the activation of the 2017 ressource allocations. Since there have been slight delays in the installation of the new clusters, the ressource allocations activation date has been pushed back. The 2017 allocations for the Arbutus cloud will be activated on May 1st, 2017, while 2017 allocations for all other systems nationwide will be activated in mid June. Until then, the computing priorities determined by the 2016 ressource allocations will remain in effect on all systems, including Calcul Québec’s.

The $PROJECT storage for Cedar and Graham will be available in the middle of May. Users whose allocations have been moved to these new systems for 2017 will therefore have time to migrate their existing data prior to the activation of the 2017 allocations. If you have an allocation on the new systems for 2017, we invite you to start preparing your data right away in prevision of that migration. You will find more information on the steps you need to take in Compute Canada’s documentation in the Transferring Data section.

Cedar and Graham soon to be available through the Rapid Access Service

Cedar will be available to all users through the Rapid Access Service only (no allocation, no priority) around mid-May.
Graham will be available to all users through the Rapid Access Service only (no allocation, no priority) around the end of May.

For more information about the new national systems, see the Compute Canada Documentation.