Research Computing
Research Computing
Most research computing shares three characteristics:
- Remote: Researchers connect to a computing resource through a secure connection to their local computer.
- Shared: Multiple researchers use the computing resource.
- Asynchronous: Researchers submit jobs to a queue; the facility's scheduler assigns resources to jobs based on pre-determined rules.
Research computing interfaces and operations require different skills than standalone laptop and desktop computers. Explore a list of resources for learning essential, core, and additional skills for research computing.
At KU
The Center for Research Computing (CRC) administers and supports high performance computing at KU. CRC facilities include:
- KU Community Cluster
- Hawk Cluster for health and identifiable data
- Environment for working with Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)
Access to KU's high performance computing is limited to hardware owners and owner-sponsored users. The CRC maintains information on hardware purchases. Individual research centers and departments may have dedicated computing facilities and equipment, or may sponsor affiliates as KU HPC users.
The CRC offers group and individual training for using the Community Cluster.
Beyond KU
State of Kansas
Researchers affiliated with Kansas Board of Regents institutions can request a free account on Kansas State University's Beocat and/or Wichita State University's Beoshock.
ACCESS
ACCESS is a National Science Foundation program to help researchers and educators access advanced computing facilities and services. Use of ACCESS does not require grant funding and comes at no cost to the individual.
KU CRC personnel can assist with additional information and getting started with ACCESS.
National Research Platform
The National Research Platform (NRP) is a community-governed pool of advanced computing resources that is funded by the National Science Foundation. NRP facilitates free access to GPUs, storage, and large language models (LLMs) for U.S. non-profit research and education purposes. NRP services include web-based tools and the Nautilus hypercluster. A free NRP account is required.
LLMs
Access to NRP's LLM chat interfaces requires a free NRP account but no dedicated namespace or programming skill. Incorporating NRP's hosted LLMs into projects requires a free NRP account and use of an API (application programming interface).
Nautilus Hypercluster
Faculty, researchers, and postdocs can request and administer a dedicated namespace for accessing computing resources and running jobs on Nautilus. Access to the cluster is through the Kubernetes tool kubectl or a JupyterHub service. Workflows through JupyterHub have different limitations than Kubernetes deployments. See NRP documentation for more details:
KU researchers can explore Nautilus and experiment with using it by requesting access to KU's dedicated namespace. Contact the KU CRC to connect your NRP account to KU's namespace.