NERSC FY 2004 Allocation Award Letter

Dear Principal Investigator,

Your DOE Office and NERSC are pleased to announce that you have received an FY 2004 award for your ERCAP request.

At this time Seaborg production awards (DOE Base and SciDAC) are being made for the first 3 months of FY 2004 only (October through December, 2003). Production award amounts for the period January - September 2004 will be announced in December. Startup awards are for the entire fiscal year. Seaborg award amounts this year are for raw processor hours and so are a factor of 2.5 times smaller than the MPP hours used in FY 2003.

If you have any questions about your award, please contact your DOE NERSC Monitor; for contact information see: http://www.nersc.gov/nusers/accounts/allocations/off-prog-mon.php.

The complete list of DOE awards is at: http://www.nersc.gov/nusers/accounts/allocations/awards/alloc2004.php.

Please acknowledge NERSC in your publications of work resulting from the use of NERSC resources:

"This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098."

1. New Seaborg accounting units for FY 2004 and other changes coming October 1
2. Using the NERSC Information Management (NIM) system
3. Establishing user lists for your FY 2004 repositories
4. Award management: repositories that haven't used much time get decremented at certain times during the fiscal year
5. Allocation request review process and scores
6. Training classes available for new and continuing users (opens new page)
7. Keeping yourself and your users informed

1. New accounting units for FY 2004 and other changes coming October 1

Starting October 1, 2003, all Seaborg usage will be accounted for in raw processor hours. In the past, in order to normalize hours between machines, NERSC used the MPP hour, which was set to the raw hour times a machine factor (which for Seaborg was 2.5). So for FY 2004 Seaborg will use accounting units that are a factor of 2.5 smaller than the FY 2003 units.

For other changes coming October 1 see October 1, 2003 Changes.

2. Using the NERSC Information Management (NIM) system

Information related to NERSC users, accounts, and allocations is available in the NERSC Information Management (NIM) system. With NIM you can monitor your project's usage, add and delete users, change users' "allowed percents" (the percent of the Seaborg or HPSS repo the the user is entitled to use), etc.

If you, the Principal Investigator, do not intend to monitor your repository, please designate one or more "Project Managers" to do this on your behalf (you can send email to support@nersc.gov to let the Account Support group know who your project managers should be).

You access NIM at http://nim.nersc.gov using your NERSC login name and NIM password (as you did to make your allocation request). The NIM Users Manual is at http://www.nersc.gov/nusers/accounts/nim/users_manual/.

3. Establishing user lists for your FY 2004 repos

To add users to your new FY 2004 repositories click the "My Stuff" menu in NIM's top left frame and select "Add/Delete User". This will bring up a separate web form which gets emailed to the Account Support Office when you click the "Send Email" button. You can add new users to your repos at any time throughout the year.

Note that users new to NERSC are required to sign and return the Computer Use Policies form. No account can be activated until this is done. The form is at: http://www.nersc.gov/nusers/policy/usage.php.

Also note that it is against NERSC policy to share usernames and passwords; each user must have her or his own account. See: http://www.nersc.gov/nusers/accounts/owners.php.

PIs with continuing repositories you should review their user lists for FY 2004 by September 25. Default statuses have been set for all users:

• for Seaborg repositories: users that have been inactive for more than 6 months have a default setting of "Delete next FY"; all other users have a default setting of "Active next FY".
• for HPSS and PDSF repositories: all settings have been set to "Active next FY". PDSF Project Managers should delete users who have been inactive for more than 6 months.

How to review and change your FY 2004 user list settings:

1. Log into NIM (nim.nersc.gov). If you have forgotten your NIM password, please contact the Account Support Office at 1-800-66-NERSC menu option 2 or 1-510-486-8612.
2. For each of your continuing FY 2004 projects, enter a repository name next to the Go button in the NIM Main Menu and click Go. Your project information will be displayed in the bottom frame.
3. Click on the User Status by Repo tab. Review and if necessary change the settings in the Next Year Status column. If you change any settings be sure to click the Save All Rows button located at the bottom of this frame.

Please keep in mind that for security reasons only active users should keep their accounts on Seaborg and PDSF.

4. Award management

Repositories that have not used significant amounts of time by mid-year will be adjusted by transferring a part of the unused balance to the corresponding DOE Office reserve. See: http://www.nersc.gov/nusers/accounts/accounts.php#management.

DOE NERSC monitors may adjust balances at other times according to their needs. If you need more time during the year, please contact your DOE NERSC monitor.

5. Allocation request review process and scores

Most DOE Base requests were reviewed either this year or last by DOE's COmputational Review Panel (CORP). Your most recent score is displayed in NIM's project information area (to get there enter your repository name next to the Go button in the NIM Main Menu and click Go). Only project PIs and Managers see this score (users do not).

More information on the review process and scores is available on the ERCAP Review Process page.

6. Training classes available for new and continuing users (opens new page)

7. Keeping yourself and your users informed

We rely on our website: http://www.nersc.gov/ for informing NERSC users of changes that occur as well as for general NERSC documentation. If you fail to find information that you need at our Web site, please let us know by email to webmaster@nersc.gov.

We also use email lists to inform users of changes. Some lists are created automatically for all active users. The most important communications are sent to these lists. Users and PIs can also subscribe to other lists. See: http://www.nersc.gov/nusers/announcements/?list=all-announcments.

We encourage all PIs and Project Managers to subscribe to the NERSC User Group email list, nug. Users subscribed to nug are informed of monthly NUG teleconferences where issues of concern to NERSC users are discussed.

We look forward to working with you during FY 2004. If you have any questions, please contact the NERSC consultants via email (consult@nersc.gov) or telephone (800-66NERSC menu option 3, 510-486-8611).