Overview

As of April 2025, the UMBC HPCF(High Performance Computing Facility) is composed of a single cluster, named chip.

Any UMBC staff, faculty, or student may request an account on the cluster to access cluster resources. Accounts must each belong to one or more cluster groups. Cluster groups may only be requested by faculty or staff. Groups are created for research groups, grant awards, or classes.

All of the machines (or computers) composing the cluster are called “cluster nodes”. The “compute nodes” are those intended for computationally intensive tasks. In contrast, the “login nodes” (a.k.a., edge nodes or user nodes) are not meant for intense processing and are only intended for file editing, navigating the file system and storage, and kicking-off slurm jobs. Attempting to run load-generating tasks on the login node can cause a noticeable slow down for other users. These tasks will be killed by system administrators. Repeated offenses may result in a lock of your cluster account. Instead, computationally intensive tasks should be run via Slurm, the cluster workload manager.