The language below can be used in grant submissions to government agencies or other funding entities.

Armis2 Description

Computing

Armis2 is an HPC Linux-based cluster intended to support parallel and other applications that are not suitable for departmental or individual computers for users that work with PHI data. Each Armis2 compute node comprises multiple CPU cores with at least 4 GB of RAM per core; Armis2 has approximately 2,200 cores. All compute nodes are interconnected with InfiniBand networking.

The larger memory Armis2 hardware comprises 6 compute nodes, each configured with 1.5 TB RAM.

Armis2 contains 4 GPU nodes.

Computing jobs on Armis2 are managed through the Slurm Scheduler.

The Armis2 Configuration page has a more detailed description of the Armis2 cluster.

Storage

The /home and /scratch NFS file systems are provide storage at approximately 80 GB/s performance.

Intra-networking

All Armis2 nodes are interconnected with InfiniBand EDR networking, capable of 100 Gb/s throughput. In addition to the InfiniBand networking, there is a gigabit Ethernet network that connects the cluster nodes. This is used for node management and NFS file system access.

Inter-networking

Armis2 is connected to the University of Michigan’s campus backbone to provide access to student and researcher desktops as well as other campus computing and storage systems. The campus backbone provides 100 Gbps connectivity to the commodity Internet and the research networks Internet2 and MiLR.

Software

The Armis2 cluster includes a comprehensive software suite of commercial and open source research software, including major software compilers, and many of the common research-specific applications such as Mathematica, Matlab, R and Stata.

Data Center Facilities

Armis2 is housed in the Modular Data Center (MDC).

Hardware Grants

Faculty Owned Environment is a service that allows researchers to add their own compute hardware to the Armis2 cluster, in order to take advantage of the data center, support, networking, storage, and basic software. For more information, visit the Faculty Owned Equipment page.

Support

Armis2 computing services are provided through a collaboration of University of Michigan units: Advanced Research Computing (part of ITS), and computing groups in schools and colleges at the university.

Grant Proposal Steps

The Following Steps Will Help You Include Armis2 in a Grant Proposal

  1. Determine the suitability of Armis2 for your research by considering whether a large computing resource is required. It is important that the proposed funds will provide computing cycles in a way that allows the team of researchers to allocate them as needed. Armis2 is an on-demand service and will be billed based on usage. This billing structure is flexible to meet researcher needs and make the best possible use of the awarded funds. Faculty-owned or provided hardware cannot be accepted into Armis2.
  2. Determine if the constraints on access to Armis2 are suitable for your project. Access to Armis2 and the software library will be granted to all University of Michigan faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students. Contractors and collaborators from other institutions may not use Armis2 because of licensing limitations with third party commercial software.
  3. Determine an appropriate budget to include in the proposal; the cost per core month is an approved rate and may be charged as a direct cost to federal grants. There is no cost at the moment, but rates for budgeting use will be available on the Rates page soon. For questions or more information about estimating usage, contact arc-support@umich.edu.
  4. Use the appropriate parts of the Armis2 Description above in your proposal. In NSF proposals use the category “computer service” and the phrase “cluster compute allocation” with quantities expressed as core-months or core-years to describe Armis2 time.
  5. Plan for the end of the award period or the exhaustion of the funds. At that time, no more jobs associated with that Armis2 project can run.