Queues

SMU’s high-performance computing (HPC) clusters use SLURM to schedule and manage resources.

See also

For examples and tips on SLURM usage, see our SLURM documentation.

Note

The efficiency of SLURM and our HPC systems depend on reasonable resource requests. Whenever possible, you should request only the resources your job needs including memory, number of cores, number of gpus, and run time.

Requesting more than you need makes your job and everyone elses jobs run less efficiently.

M3 Queues

M3 has the following queues:

Partition Name	Number of Nodes	Cores Per Node	Memory Per Node	Time Limit	Notes
dev	4	128	500GB	2 hours
gpu-dev	3	36	734GB	2 hours	8 Nvidia V100 GPUs per node
htc	10 + 10 shared*	128	500GB	24 hours	*share nodes are listed in htc and standard-s
standard-s	136 + 10 shared*	128	500GB	24 hours	*share nodes are listed in htc and standard-s
standard-l	20	128	500GB	7 days
highmem	8	128	2TB	5 days
dtn	2	128	500GB	7 days	*approval required

All M3 nodes are identical and contain dual AMD EPYC 7763 64-Core Processors with the exception of the nodes on the highmem partition having more memory.

• The dev nodes are meant for interactive and development work

• The gpu-dev nodes are meant for interactive and development work. Production and batch jobs should run on the SuperPod.

• The htc nodes are for “High Throughput Computing” and are intended for jobs that typically launch a large number of tasks that require a single core and a small amount of memory for a short time. This is also an appropriate queue for many interactive jobs requiring longer than 2 hours.

• The standard-s and standard-l nodes are where most jobs should be run depending on their duration

• The highmem nodes are for jobs requiring more than 500GB of memory

• The dtn nodes are “Data Transfer Nodes.” Access requires approval. These nodes are meant only for transfering data to/from M3.

Note

You should select the queue most appropriate for your jobs and not on current availability.

SuperPod (MP) Queues

The SuperPod has 2 queues:

Partition Name	Number of Nodes	Cores Per Node	Memory Per Node	GPUs Per Node	Time Limit
batch	18	128	2TB	8 Nvidia A100s	48 hours
short	2	128	2TB	8 Nvidia A100s	4 hours

All SuperPod nodes are identical and contain dual AMD EPYC 7742 64-Core Processors.

We have partitioned the nodes on the SuperPod, so for every GPU you request, you will also receive 16 CPU cores and 96GB of memory automatically.

Note

CPU only jobs should be run on M3 and not the SuperPod

Short queue

The short queue is intended for interactive work, development, and other short tasks. The following job restrictions apply:

• 4 hour time limit

• default allocation 1 GPU, 16 cores, 96GB memory, 2 hours

• default of of 96 GB and 16 cores per GPU

• Max 2 GPUs

• Max 128GB per GPU

• Max 16 cores per GPU

• Max 1 running job per user

• ssh access to compute nodes enabled for running jobs

Special Requests

Exceptions may be requested, for example, to run a job on all 20 SuperPOD nodes. Approval for any such requests will be the responsibility of the O’Donnell Data Science and Research Computing Institute and will be based on demonstrated need and impact to other users.