cep3:start

CEP3 Cluster

This is the entry point for all CEP3 related information. CEP3 is a processing cluster that will be configured as a managed cluster.

CEP3 usage policy

The use of CEP3 cluster is allocated by the LOFAR Programme Committee and the ILT director during the regular proposal evaluation stages, or under Director's Discretionary Time. Access and use of CEP3 cluster is under the sole control of the ASTRON Science Data Centre Operations (SDCO) team. Access for Users will be granted only at the discretion of the SDCO staff. Users should conform to the access, resource allocation and data deletion policies issued by the SDCO at all times.

To have access to CEP3 a formal request must be submitted via the ticketing system at https://support.astron.nl/sdchelpdesk or be explicitly given in a proposal for LOFAR observing time. When submitting a request users should clearly include the following information:

  • A brief explanation of why access to CEP3 is required (e.g., you do not have access to suitable computing resources elsewhere)
  • Project to be worked on (i.e. commissioning, cycle or archived data (post) processing)
  • Description of the kind of processing for which CEP3 access is requested
  • List of collaborators (if any) who should also have access
  • General description of the data to be processed (e.g. data size)
  • Estimated processing time required

Users awarded with access to CEP3 will be able to access the cluster for a limited period of time (8 weeks by default). The awarded period starts following the timeline communicated to the user via the SDCO notification and available at earlyaccess. At the beginning of a Cycle, users requesting CEP3 processing time in their observing proposals can derive this timeline by checking the observing schedule, which is available here. Access timelines related to observing programs involving observations spread in time will be discussed between the PI and SDCO staff. In general, info about CEP3 access of users are detailed at earlyaccess

After the granted period on CEP3 has expired, all user's data products generated on the cluster will be automatically and promptly removed, to enable new users to have enough disk space to perform their data reduction.

Extensions to the default 8-weeks period will be granted only in exceptional circumstances and only if properly justified through a formal request to be sent to the SDC helpdesk no later than 1 week before the expiration of your access privileges. Monitoring of node usage during allocated time will be performed and the evaluation of extension requests will be based on such statistics.

  • Last modified: 2021-02-19 14:21
  • by Marco Iacobelli