{"id":5015,"date":"2025-06-27T21:35:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T19:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/?p=5015"},"modified":"2025-06-27T21:35:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T19:35:57","slug":"uct-hpc-cluster-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"UCT HPC cluster updates"},"content":{"rendered":"
IMPORTANT – SOFTWARE INSTALLS<\/span><\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
We have noticed an increasing number of people installing software\\libraries directly via the head node.\u00a0 Please do not do this.\u00a0 Many of these installs require a large amount\u00a0of RAM or induce heavy load on the processors.\u00a0 The head node is a small, virtual machine that is only\u00a0intended\u00a0to run the HPC scheduler.\u00a0 Please use an interactive job<\/a> to install software or libraries.\u00a0 If you are uncertain how to do this please contact us and we will gladly assist.<\/div>\n
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Interactive jobs<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
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To assist researchers in identifying if they are currently running an interactive job we have inverted the colours of the worker node server name in the prompt to black on white text.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
Accounts and acknowledgements<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
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If you no longer require your UCT HPC account, or if you have recently submitted a thesis or paper acknowledging<\/a> usage of the cluster, please let us know.<\/div>\n
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Name change: hpc\\hex<\/b><\/u><\/div>\n
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During our migration project the new HPC head node was called hex. It will retain this name but now also uses the standard name, hpc.\u00a0 You can use either.\u00a0 If you normally login to hex you can just keep doing that. Logging into hpc is the same as logging into hex, just using the official name.<\/div>\n
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New servers and allocations<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
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Last week we added another five 40 core ada:200 series nodes.\u00a0 We are currently adding another twenty 48 core ada:100 series nodes and an additional GPU server with four L40S\u00a0cards.<\/div>\n
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We will be increasing the default allocations for postgrad researchers to 200 simultaneous cores and 250 hours walltime. Honours and undergrad accounts will also have their limits increased to 120 cores \/ 170 hours and 80 cores \/ 100 hours respectively.<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
Core reservations<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
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When requesting resources please do not oversubscribe your jobs.\u00a0 Requesting 40 cores for a job when your code can only\u00a0address 1 or 2 cores prohibits other researchers from using these valuable resources. The exception being jobs that require large amounts of RAM.<\/div>\n
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Scratch storage<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We have updated our Scratch Storage Policy<\/a>. Please also note that the \/scratch file system is not backed up at all, nor is it meant for long term storage.<\/div>\n
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HPC Training courses<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
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We will be running an Advanced HPC training course on the 17th of July. This course will cover job submission methods, resource selection, environments and modules, library installation, containers and virtual sessions. A degree of familiarity with Linux is required. If you would like to attend this course please let us know.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We are looking at running several additional introductory training courses in the next few months. If you are interested in attending these introductory courses please let us know.<\/p>\n

Software development course<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
For those researchers who are developing their own software\u00a0RSSE Africa is hosting a two day Workshop on Sustainable Research Software Engineering<\/a> at UWC.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IMPORTANT – SOFTWARE INSTALLS \u00a0 We have noticed an increasing number of people installing software\\libraries directly via the head node.\u00a0 Please do not do this.\u00a0 Many of these installs require a large amount\u00a0of RAM or induce heavy load on the processors.\u00a0 The head node is a small, virtual machine that is only\u00a0intended\u00a0to run the HPC…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,6,4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nUCT HPC cluster updates - UCT HPC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UCT HPC cluster updates - UCT HPC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"IMPORTANT – SOFTWARE INSTALLS \u00a0 We have noticed an increasing number of people installing softwarelibraries directly via the head node.\u00a0 Please do not do this.\u00a0 Many of these installs require a large amount\u00a0of RAM or induce heavy load on the processors.\u00a0 The head node is a small, virtual machine that is only\u00a0intended\u00a0to run the HPC...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UCT HPC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-27T19:35:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andrew Lewis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andrew Lewis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Andrew Lewis\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/#\/schema\/person\/c183ad1c0a1063124a72d63963ae9c7e\"},\"headline\":\"UCT HPC cluster updates\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-27T19:35:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-27T19:35:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/\"},\"wordCount\":464,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"GPU\",\"hardware\",\"hpc\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-ZA\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ucthpc.uct.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/uct-hpc-cluster-updates\/\",\"name\":\"UCT HPC cluster updates - 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