UMBC HPCF - chip

Overview

As of April 2025, the UMBC HPCF is composed of a single cluster, named chip.

Anyone may request an account on the cluster to access cluster resources.

All of the machines (or computers) composing the cluster are called “cluster nodes”. The “compute nodes” are those intended for computationally intense 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 intense tasks should be run via slurm, the cluster workload manager.