Project proposals¶
Employees of all universities and research institutes in Germany may access the HPC cluster HoreKa by applying for computing resources (project proposal). Principial investigators of a foreign research organization need a german partner who submits the proposal.
Use of HoreKa is free of charge, but the resource has to be acknowleged on all publications.
Project types¶
NHR@KIT offers three types of projects depending on compute resources needed which implies different call and review types.
| Project type | Duration | Min. Resources | Max. Resources | Review | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NHR Test | 6 months, not extendable | - / - | 500.000 CPUh / 5.000 GPUh | Technical | Rolling |
| NHR Normal | 1 year, extendable | 2.0 Mill CPUh / 30.000 GPUh | 14.9 Mill CPUh / 199.999 GPUh | 2x Scientific | Rolling |
| NHR Large | 1 year, extendable | 15.0 Mill CPUh / 200.000 GPh | 70.0 Mill CPUh / 1.0 Mill GPUh | 2x Scientific + NHR user committee | Quarterly |
NHR Test projects¶
NHR test projects for activities like testing, porting, developing and benchmarking applications can be granted after a technical review by a review board of the NHR@KIT center, i.e., approval of test projects are not subject to scientific reviewing. Proposals for test projects have to be submitted via JARDS, and are limited to a maximum of 500.000 CPU hours and/or 5.000 GPU hours. Note that the maximum project time of 6 months can not be extented. It is expected that any follow-up activity of the given compute project is part of a NHR normal or NHR large project.
NHR Normal projects¶
NHR normal projects are scientifically reviewed compute time projects for the cluster HoreKa with the duration of 1 year starting at the date of approval. Any proposal of compute time from 2.000.000 CPU core hours (and/or 30.000 GPU hours) up to 14.999.999 CPU core hours (and/or 199.999 GPU hours) are considered normal size projects - note that the final amount of granted computing time will decided by the Steering Committee of Baden-Wurttemberg. Application for normal projects can be done any time of the year (rolling call). Allowed activities prior to the official project start can be found below.
NHR Large projects¶
NHR large projects are compute time projects that reviewed by the Steering Committee of Baden-Wurttemberg and finally approved by the NHR User Committee. Any proposal of compute time from 15.000.000 CPU core hours (and/or 200.000 GPU hours) up to 70.000.000 CPU core hours (and/or 1.000.000 GPU hours) are considered large size projects - note that the final amount of granted computing time will decided by the Steering Committee of Baden-Wurttemberg and the NHR User Committee. Application for large projects can be only done quarterly and start time is scheduled 3 months after the submission deadline.
| Call no. | Submission Deadline | Deadline techical reviews | Deadline scientific reviews | NHR user committee Meeting | Project start |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 01.10. | 15.10. | 20.11. | Mid Dec | 01.01. |
| 2 | 01.01. | 15.01. | 20.02. | Mid Mar | 01.04. |
| 3 | 01.04. | 15.04. | 20.05. | Mid Jun | 01.07. |
| 4 | 01.07. | 15.07. | 20.08. | Mid Spt | 01.10. |
Allowed activities prior to the official project start can be found below.
Application of NHR normal and large projects¶
Application portal¶
Any qualified prinicipal investigator can submit a proposal by using the JARDS project management platform. After finalizing a proposal via JARDS, the application form has to be printed, signed and a scanned copy has to be sent to horeka-projects@nhr.kit.edu.
Detailled project description¶
During the application process you are required to upload a detailled project description (sometimes referred to as "extended project description") about 3 pages in length. The following topics have to be addressed in this document:
- Research field (e.g. Physics, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering)
- Underlying theory (e.g. Quantum Physics, Continuum Mechanics)
- Description of goals (e.g. computation of helicopter aerodynamics)
- Mathematical model (e.g. Navier-Stokes-Equations with turbulence model, Direct Simulation with Navier-Stokes-Equations)
- Numerical methods (e.g. Finite Volume Method with Multigrid on unstructured tetrahedron grids)
- Calculation of resources (CPU core and GPU hours as separate values)
- Practical relevance of expected results
- Timeframe and workplan
- Relevant literature or publications
- Necessity for use of High Performance Computing (e.g. problem scope, turnaround time, answer time, resources, scalability)
- Experiences of the applicant with HPC technologies, and
- Results and limits from other platforms
Estimating the amount of resources needed¶
It can be hard to estimate how many resources (CPU core hours / GPU hours) your project will need. The easiest way to find out is to apply for a NHR test project before handing in the proposal for a NHR normal or large project.
Please keep in mind that individual compute nodes on HoreKa are always assigned to a single job exclusively. Please calculcate your resource consumption with 76 CPU cores per node, and not 152 CPU threads per node (see the Project accounting page).
Project Reviewing¶
All NHR normal and large project proposals are reviewed by the multi-disciplinary Steering Committee of Baden-Wurttemberg and for large projects additionally by the NHR User Committee. Projects are marked as preliminary until the review phase is over. During this time a prinicipal investigator can already add contributors to the project (see the Manage project contributors chapter), and the project members are able to use HoreKa.
While a project is in the reviewing phase (preliminary state), usage is limited to a maximum of 5% of the requested compute hours or 500,000 CPU compute hours (whichever is more). The full amount of granted resources becomes available as soon as the project will have been approved by the Steering Committee of Baden-Wurttemberg and for NHR large projects also by the NHR User Committee.
Should the steering committee decline a project proposal, the associated accounts will lose access to HoreKa and no further computation is possible.
Project duration¶
The project duration is 1 year starting for NHR normal projects at the date of final approval or for NHR large projects 3 months after submission deadline.
Project implementation¶
Project implementation is the responsibility of the prinicipial investigator (PI). During the project, the NHR centers will monitor the project utilization data and provide the consumption data to the PI on a regular basis, cf. Project accounting.
Project report¶
Each project is required to produce an annual project report, outlining the resources used, scientific results, and publications, if any, as well as a popular science account of the project and the results for publication.
The report has to be submitted latest 3 months after the project end.
In case of a planned continuation of the project, the project report is part of the application procedure for project extension.
Project extension¶
Only NHR normal and large projects can be extended.
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Extensions of up to 3 months / 20% of the initially granted resources do not have to be re-evaluated by the steering committee.
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Extensions of up to 1 year / more than 20% of the initially granted resources have to be fully re-evaluated by the steering committee.
The decision on project extension is not based on the general scientific eligibility, but rather on a description of the existing results and details and the further course and work plan/achievements of the project. Renewed proof of scalability is not required for project extension, if the complexity of the project and the numerical methods to be used have not changed.
Application of project extension¶
Project extensions are manged using JARDS. Please note that it is currently not possible to use the "Extend" function on your existing project entry, but extensions have to be handed in as new projects. During the creation of the new project, please upload an intermediary report containing a description of the existing results and details and the further course and work plan/achievements of the project as the Extended project description document.