Account FAQs

Who may request access to NC State University HPC resources?

Any NC State faculty member may request a project on the IBM Blade Center Linux cluster and/or the IBM POWER5 system.

May a project be shared with students or collaborators?

A project may include several individual accounts. Each individual must use only their own account. Accounts will be added to a project at the request of the faculty member who requested the project (principal investigator).

How are projects requested?

New projects on either the IBM POWER5 shared memory system or IBM Blade Center Linux cluster can be requested online using the form at http://hpc.ncsu.edu/Accounts/New_Project_Request.

How are additional accounts requested?

Additional accounts may be added to an existing project online using the form at hpc.ncsu.edu/Accounts/Add_Account.

What is the procedure to add a collaborator who is not NCSU faculty, staff or student?

On the Blade Center and the Power5, accounts are tied to the NCSU Unity accounts. So to get access to these systems requires a Unity ID. The web page Computing Account Maintenance outlines the necessary procedure, stating that "Departments needing Unity accounts for guests should enter these people into the HR system as 'no-pay' employees."

To navigate the HR system, faculty should work with the HR person in their department. The required documents for "no pay" employees can be obtained from the EPA No Pay page of the Human Resources Web site. When the collaborator has obtained "no-pay" employment status, a Unity ID will be available from the department HR person, and the sponsoring faculty can then request an account by the procedure outlined at the top of the page (so that an HPC account will be created overnight).

Ideally, the procedure will take only a few days. Since "'no-pay' employment" requires several layers of approval, it's a good idea to start the procedure a week (preferably two weeks) before a collaborator arrives on campus.