The Academic and Research Computing Department maintains a variety of resources to help faculty and students with research and learning. While there is a large amount of resources available, they are all shared, so a few general usage guidelines are listed for each area that ARC provides support.
If you have any questions about the resources or usage guidelines, please send us an email at archelp@wpi.edu, or schedule a consultation with ARC staff.
Rapid Prototyping
Guidelines for the use of the RP machines covering the capabilities of the machines, available materials, and submission guidelines, are posted in the documents section of the RP SharePoint site. Be sure to review these guidelines prior to consultations and order submissions.
Plan your submission with an appropriate amount of time allowed to complete the order. You will receive an email as soon as your parts are ready for pick up.
Consultations are available and encouraged at any stage of your project, from initial hand sketched ideas to final order submission.
SESA Courses
These courses are free, but the time required to prepare, schedule, and present the material is not. Please be respectful of the ARC staff, and only register for courses you plan to attend. Your registration for a course you might attend may prevent someone else from registering for a seat.
We understand that schedules change, so if you cannot attend a course you are registered for, please cancel your registration by sending an email to archelp@wpi.edu as soon as possible so that students on the waitlist can attend instead.
All SESA courses will be held in a computer laboratory with workstations that have all of the required software installed.
If you have questions or suggestions about currently available or future SESA courses, please send us an email at archelp@wpi.edu, or schedule a consultation with ARC staff.
Linux and Windows Workstations
All of the single sign on workstations are shared resources, meaning there is nothing preventing multiple users from simultaneous usage.
Do not monopolize workstations for weeks at a time. ARC staff reserves the right to kill simulations or programs that are abusing the resources.
If you are unsure of how to use the workstations, please send us an email at archelp@wpi.edu, or schedule a consultation with ARC staff.
HPC Linux Clusters
Use of ARC maintained clusters is regulated by a batch manager (queueing system). If you are observed running simulations outside of the batch manager, or abusing ARC computational resources in any other way, the following steps will be taken:
- The first offense will be treated as an accident and you will be directed to the appropriate tutorials.
- The second offense will be followed by a strongly worded email warning.
- The third offense will result in your cluster account being closed indefinitely.
If you are having trouble with the HPC clusters, please send us an email at archelp@wpi.edu, or schedule a consultation with ARC staff.
Data Storage
ARC provides 2 TB of research storage to each faculty member. This storage is specifically designed to meet funding agency requirements on reliability and availability.
All data stored in this space effectively uses more than 2 TB (up to 60 TB per 2 TB of information stored) as the storage is backed up every hour for 2 weeks, after which backups move to long term archival storage. We ask that you utilize this space ONLY FOR research data or academic purposes.
If you have questions about data storage and security, please send us an email at archelp@wpi.edu, or schedule a consultation with ARC staff.
Last Updated on June 23, 2023