University of Auckland Specific Services

General

Here's a link to a page on the UoA Research Hub that describes Nectar at University of Auckland in some detail, including whom to contact for a consultation or support. 

GPU Instances

How to launch and use a GPU instance in Auckland cluster

We have a range of GPUs on offer to UoA researchers. Because GPUs are in very high demand, are not easily shared, and are very expensive, we have limited allocations to currently 6-month periods. As long as nobody is waiting, you can apply to renew the GPU at the end of the six months. If someone is waiting, however, you'll need to finish up your work. We realise this isn't ideal, but it's the fairest system we can think of, at this point. 

Please include the model of GPU you'd like to use in your Nectar allocation application. If you're not sure, please reach out, and someone from our team will be happy to have a consultation to help you decide the most suitable model for your workflow.

Please keep in mind that the more performant GPUs are the ones in the highest demand, and will be the ones more likely to have others waiting to use at the end of your 3-month period. 

The P40 and T4 models are available through a self-service reservation service (see here), while the V100 and the A100 models are available on request only.

It's important to note that we have fixed GPU flavours available, which are based on the capabilities of each particular GPU hypervisor. Generally these are maximum amounts, as we almost always have dedicated GPU nodes and divide the maximum resources available on the host by the number of GPUs for the flavour amounts. 

*ephemeral storage on V100s and A100 is fast SSD storage mounted on /mnt, but is not included in instance snapshots.

Windows Instances

See How to access Windows VMs in Auckland cluster

We do offer Windows instances for UoA researchers with full Nectar projects (i.e. not for the temporary project trials). Due to licensing restrictions, you will need to access these from either on-campus physical networks, or via the UoA VPN connection. At this time, usage is suitable for a maximum of two concurrent users. We do have other solutions available for Windows research VMs, so please reach out if you'd like more information. 

Licensed Software

In general, licenses for software applications installed in the Auckland Nectar Node are BYO. However, we do have some popular applications available with UoA licenses, such as MATLAB (installation documented at  MATLAB installation on vms in Auckland cluster)
Please reach out for more information.