High Performance Computing Clusters
Stony Brook University researchers may access the services provided by the following two HPC clusters:
LI-red
LI-red is a computational cluster using top-of-the-line components from Cray, IBM, Intel, Mellanox and other technology partners. It is intended for members of the campus community, as well as industrial partners, and is located in the Institute for Advanced Computational Science's (IACS) server room.
SeaWulf
SeaWulf is a computational cluster using top of the line components from Penguin, DDN, Intel, Nvidia, Mellanox and numerous other technology partners. It is intended for members of the campus community, as well as industrial partners, and is located in the Computing Center.
New User Warnings
- If you have never used a high performance computing cluster, or are not familiar with SeaWulf, YOU WILL WANT to read and follow the instructions in the FAQ below (start with the Getting Started Guide!). It is a common practice by new users to ignore this FAQ and simply try to run jobs without understanding what they are doing. Such carelessness can and WILL easily impact the many users who are currently running critical jobs on the cluster. If your actions compromise the health of SeaWulf, your account will be LOCKED so please make sure you thoroughly read the guides below before you embark on running jobs.
- Do NOT use the login nodes for computationally intensive work of any kind. This includes compiling software. If everyone runs CPU- or RAM-intensive processes on either login node, it will crash and prevent all other SeaWulf users from being able to login to the cluster. If you need to test or compile your code, please request an interactive job instead of testing it on the login nodes!
- Do NOT use your home directory (/gpfs/home/NETID) to store large files as you may quickly exceed the directory’s storage limit (20 GB). It is best to place large or temporary files in your scratch directory (/gpfs/scratch/NETID), though please keep in mind that files and directories in scratch are automatically removed after 30 days. If your research group needs a persistent directory with a larger storage limit, consider requesting a shared project space.
- Never submit a large number of jobs (greater than 5) without first running a small test case to make sure your code works as expected. Start slow and then ramp up with jobs once you are familiar with how things work.
- SeaWulf is managed by a small number of System Administrators and students. If you encounter an issue or have problems running your job, please make sure you read through the FAQ items below before submitting a ticket to HPC Support.
Announcements
- March 17, 2023
We have just been notified by the manufacturer of a critical firmware update that needs to be applied to SeaWulf to ensure we can continue to provide a robust computational environment. Out of an abundance of caution, we are taking an emergency maintenance window, scheduled for ~3 hours from now at 3:30 PM today. This window is expected to last for ~24 hours.
During this maintenance window, all Seawulf login nodes and queues, as well as the storage will NOT be available.
We apologize for this unforeseen development, and thank you for your patience while we apply these critical firmware updates.
- March 16, 2023
In order to allow the university to perform electrical maintenance on the campus data center, the 28-core and Tesla K80 gpu queues will be going offline starting at end-of-business on March 21st. These queues will come back online after the maintenance is concluded by the end of business on March 22nd. No other queues will be affected, and the login nodes will remain accessible during this maintenance period.
We thank you for your patience while these necessary upgrades are implemented.
- January 31, 2023
In order to perform the 2nd phase of updates on the SeaWulf storage arrays, upgrade the networking and perform electrical maintenance on the infrastructure, the SeaWulf cluster will be going off-line starting 9:00 AM on Wednesday February 15th. The maintenance is expected to be completed by the end of business on Thursday February 16th. During this maintenance window, all login nodes, compute nodes as well as the storage array will NOT be accessible.
We thank you for your patience while we perform these necessary updates.
- November 14, 2022
In order to perform updates on the SeaWulf storage arrays, the SeaWulf cluster will be going off-line starting at 9:00 AM Tuesday December 6th . The maintenance is expected to be completed by the end of business on Wednesday December 7th. During this maintenance window, all login nodes, compute nodes as well as the storage array will NOT be accessible.
The second phase of this two part maintenance is tentatively scheduled for January 4th and 5th.
We thank you for your patience while we perform these necessary updates.
- September 26, 2022
Starting at 5:00 PM on Friday September 30th, the 40-core queues on the SeaWulf cluster will be going off-line for scheduled maintenance. All jobs, queued or running, on the 40-core queues at that time will need to be resubmitted at the end of the maintenance window, which is scheduled to conclude on Friday October 7th by the end of business.
The 24-core, 28-core and 96-core queues will be in operation throughout this time. Thank you for your patience while we perform these necessary maintenance operations.- September 21, 2022
The intel-stack module has been updated to provide compilers, MKL, and MPI from Intel oneAPI version 2022.2.
Older versions of the Intel modules are still available and can be loaded individually, but they are no longer part of the intel-stack module.- April 01, 2022
Due to a power outage on Campus this morning, the SeaWulf 28-core and GPU queues went down. With campus operations having restored power, the queues are now back online. Any jobs running on them will need to be restarted.
Partners
Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS)
The mission of the IACS is to make sustained advances in the fundamental techniques of computation and in high-impact applications with a vision that it will be an internationally-recognized institute having vibrant multidisciplinary research and education programs with demonstrated economic benefit to New York State. Including students and staff, the IACS aims to grow close to 100 people in the near future. There are presently 10 faculty spanning chemistry, materials by design, condensed matter, astrophysics, atmospheric science, nano-science, sociology, applied mathematics, and computer science. Another approximate 20 faculty are affiliated with the institute from diverse departments.
Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR)
The Office of the Vice President for Research helps strategically position the University to be successful in attracting external support for research from federal and other government sources, industry, private foundations, philanthropy, and through partnerships with allied organizations such as Brookhaven National Lab, Cold Spring Harbor, and others. It facilitates the process of applying for grants and contracts and manages awards to assure that research is carried out successfully and that the requirements of sponsoring agencies are fulfilled. It also provides technology tools to disseminate information, facilitate collaboration, and streamline research administration.
University Libraries
Stony Brook Libraries are known for a wide-range of print and digital resources and world-renowned special collections. The Stony Brook Libraries belong to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), with a Health Sciences Center Library that is a member of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries. The Libraries’ collection exceed 2 million volumes, including eBooks, print and electronic holdings of scholarly journal subscriptions, microforms, music recordings, and a sizable map collection.The University’s Libraries stand as the largest academic research library on Long Island, serving as a resource in the local community, state-wide, and nationally through the National Network of the National Libraries of Medicine.
Service Providers
Internet2 (NYSERNet)
Stony Brook offers researchers high-capacity, high-speed connections to the Internet as a member of NYSERNet and Internet2.
XSEDE
XSEDE is a single virtual system that scientists can use to interactively share computing resources, data and expertise. People around the world use these resources and services — things like supercomputers, collections of data and new tools — to improve our planet.
Brookhaven National Lab
Brookhaven National Lab acts as an extension of Stony Brook University for faculty as another service provider.
Additional Information
There are no additional resources available for this service.
Getting Help
The Division of Information Technology provides support on all of our services. If you require assistance please submit a support ticket through the IT Service Management system.
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