Sys­tem Ac­cess

Scientists at German universities can apply for free access to our supercomputers for research purposes as part of the NHR network. In addition, there are simplified access routes for users from Paderborn University and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as options for international users. The following information will help you to find the right way to apply for access. If in doubt, our support team will also be happy to help you. 

How to ap­p­ly for HPC re­sources

Scientists can apply for HPC resources required for their research activities. The requested resources are managed as a project with a default duration of one year. If necessary, a project can be renewed after one year by following the process of submitting a new application.
Applications have to be submitted through the online project application systems

 and must comply to the project classification, resource allowance and eligibility criteria listed in the following table. If you need a commitment of compute resources for a project proposal, please have a look at the FAQ section.

 

Recent Changes:

Project Class Purpose HPC System   Location of Principal Investigator (*) CPU-Core-hours, resp. GPU-Core-Hours, per project and year Granting period/Project duration Review Process Remarks
NHR-Starter This category is intended for applicants without experience with the application procedure for resource use of high performance computing, and without deeper background knowledge of high performance computing. 

Noctua 2

Noctua 1
 

DE depending on need one year, usually followed up by a NHR-normal/large project, one per PI
 
continuous submission,
technical review

Can be submitted at any time

Guide to apply

NHR-Large
 

Projects with large resource requirements
(e.g. large research activity)

Noctua 2

Noctua 1
 

DE

> 20 Mio. CPU core-h and/or > 100,000 GPU-h or FPGA-h per year

one year
or
multi-year, extensions possible

four times a year,
technical review and
external scientific peer review

This is an NHR-project.

Call for Proposal

Guide to apply or extend 

 

NHR-Normal
 

Projects with medium size resource requirements (e.g. medium-sized research activity, large scale GPU accelerated application)

Noctua 2

Noctua 1

DE

> 4 Mio. and <= 20 Mio. CPU-core-h
and/or <= 100,000 GPU-h or FPGA-h  per year

one year
or
multi-year, extensions possible

continuous submission,
technical review and
external scientific peer review

This is an NHR-project.

Can be submitted at any time.

Guide to apply or extend

 

Small

Projects with small resource requirements
(e.g. small to medium-sized research activity, FPGA or GPU accelerated application, PhD thesis)

Noctua 2

Noctua 1

UPB, NRW (only locations without local/Tier-3 resources)

<= 4 Mio. CPU core-h and
<= 10,000 GPU-h or FPGA-h  per year

one year, extensions possible

continuous submission,
technical review and internal scientific review

Guide to apply

 

Project with a special emphasis on FPGA acceleration of HPC codes (e.g. in scope of AMD/Xilinx HACC program)

Noctua 2

Noctua 1

Global

<= 4 Mio. CPU core-h and <= 10,000 FPGA-h  per year

one year, extensions possible

continuous submission,
technical review and internal scientific review

Scientists of research and teaching institutions worldwide can be granted access to FPGA systems in the context of a research collaboration with PC2.


Guide to apply

 

Teaching (courses, Bachelor or Master thesis)

Noctua 1

UPB, NRW (only locations without local/Tier-3 resources)

<= 100,000 CPU core-h  per year

3 - 6 months

continuous submission,
technical review 

Thesis with focus on FPGA-acceleration of HPC codes can be granted access to Noctua2.


Guide to apply

Test

Porting applications, scalability analysis

Noctua 1

Noctua 2

DE

depending on purpose, by default 100,000 CPU core-h, 1,000 GPU-h

one month

continuous submission,
technical review

Noctua2 can be used for GPU- and FPGA-accelerated applications, Noctua1 can be used for GPU-accelerated applications.


Guide to apply

 

(*) Global = Research and teaching institutions worldwide
     DE = Academic institutions in Germany
     NRW = Research institutions located in North Rhine-Westphalia (State NRW)
     UPB = Paderborn University

Tem­pla­tes

Project Type Purpose Files
normal or large,
single-year or multi-year
Detailed description for compute time application if the project has been not been scientifically reviewed yet

DOCX, TeX

normal,
single-/multi-year
Detailed description for compute time application if the project has already been scientifically reviewed 

DOCX, TeX

normal or large,
single-/multi-year
Detailed description for extension of project

DOCX, TeX

normal or large,
multi-year
Yearly short progress report

DOCX, TeX

normal or large,
single-/multi-year
Final report after project end (if not applied for an extension)

DOCX, TeX

small project Project report after project end (if not applied for an extension)

DOCX, TeX