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Additional Resource Requests§

We recognise that researchers may sometimes require a higher throughput of work than it is possible to achieve with free ‘fair share’ usage of Myriad and Kathleen. There a couple of ways of obtaining additional Myriad resources beyond this fair share:

Make a special request to the CRAG for free access to additional resources§

Users who wish to request additional resources or reserve resources beyond those provided can complete the additional resource request form in collaboration with your supervisor or the project's principal investigator. This includes requests for increased storage quotas.

The completed form should be sent to the Research Computing Platforms team at rc-support@ucl.ac.uk, for technical review. If successful, your case will be presented to the CRAG for consideration at the next meeting of the Group. The CRAG meets monthly, usually on the second Tuesday of the month, and users will be informed of the Group’s decision as soon as possible after their next meeting.

Note that an application to the CRAG for additional resources is only likely to be approved if the impact on other users is not deemed to be significant, or of long duration.

  • Additional resource request form
  • NB: Myriad's filesystem is still very full (replacement due March 2025) and so we need more detail for requests, plus your plan for removal of the data once your quota increase ends. We will be considering requests in batches and comparing to space left. All granted requests will expire at the end of March 2025 or Myriad refresh date, whichever is earliest, and will require reapplication for the new filesystem.

Examples of requests§

  • Increased Scratch quota - tell us how much, for what purpose and how long you'll need it. Also tell us in brief your plan for removal of the data once your quota increase ends.
    • Once implemented, lquota will show the new quota.
  • Longer wallclock limit
    • Consider whether you can checkpoint and restart your job: that is, write out everything that you need for a second job to begin where the previous one finished. Running multiple shorter jobs one after the other is more robust since if anything goes wrong you lose less work. If this is not possible for your jobs, explain why.
    • Please note that we cannot guarantee that longer jobs will not be interrupted by planned outages or maintenance periods. We try not to, but sometimes it is unavoidable.
    • Include details on what resources one job is likely to require, how many of those jobs you expect to need to run, and over what time period you'll need access to longer jobs.
    • If granted, you will be given access to the crag5day project for example, and by adding #$ -P crag5day to your jobscript you will be able to request a longer wallclock time than usual for that job.

Request hosting of shared datasets§

We have provision for hosting shared datasets for users on Myriad. These can be datasets that are freely accessible by all users, or ones limited to groups.

Hosted datasets:

  • Will not be backed up.
  • Must have a named primary contact.
  • Must be reapplied for every 12 months to make sure they are still current and required.
  • Will have an associated quota.
  • Will be removed when renewal lapses (notice will be given).

They are likely to be managed by a role account - access to the role account will be by ssh key.

To apply for a hosted dataset, please send this form to rc-support@ucl.ac.uk.

Purchase dedicated compute nodes or priority cycles on Myriad§

Researchers may purchase additional resources to be used as part of the Myriad High Performance Computing cluster if the free service does not meet their needs. See Paid-for resources: Purchasing in Myriad for details.

Further information§

For further advice or information on future hardware options, please contact rc-support@ucl.ac.uk.