NHR Application Process

Tip

You’re a new user and just want access to the NHR resources for testing your software, learning how to use the systems or preparing a project proposal? We recommend to just proceed to the project application system JARDS and request an NHR Starter project (select NHR@Göttingen as the preferred site). Once your application reaches us, we will setup access and you will be notified about the next steps.

To become a user on the compute systems of NHR-NORD@Göttingen, you need to either (see below sections for details):

  • Be added to an existing project.
  • Apply for your “own” access:
    • Apply for a Test Account (technically, you would be added to one of the federal state Test Projects)
    • Apply for a Test- or Starter Project
    • Apply for a full Normal/Large Compute Project

Be Added to an Existing Project

Ask an existing project’s PI/s and/or Delegates to add you to their project. They need to log into the HPC Project Portal, click the Add users to the project button and paste your email address. Some projects are even configured as “open projects”, you can browse for them yourself and click the project’s Join button to send them a request.

Apply for your own access

Test Accounts, Starter Projects and Test Projects all offer limited compute time with a maximum of 300 000 core hours per quarter. For details and differences between these options, see below.

To get more resources, please apply for an NHR Normal or NHR Large Compute Project.

Eligibility

Generally, to be able to apply for an NHR project, you need to be a member of a German University (“Hochschule”) holding a PhD, see NHR Alliance, Computing Time / NHR-Verein, Rechnernutzung. Non-doctoral scientists and collaborators can be added to existing projects.

Due to EU export control regulations, there can be additional restrictions for people originating from certain countries.

Apply for a Test Account

Test Accounts only have limited compute time and storage. By default the limit is 75 000 CPU hours per quarter. You can request an increase of your limit up to a maximum of 300 000 CPU hours per quarter. Test Account’s storage space is limited to just their HOME directory (small quota) and workspaces (workspaces have limited lifetimes). They are primarily suitable for testing the cluster and your workloads/codes, but can also be used for small compute projects with only a single user. If you need more storage space, but less than 300k CPUh/Q, or you have a group of people who would like to test our cluster to work on a common topic, please apply for a Test Project. For everything else (e.g. more compute and/or large amounts of dedicated storage), you need to apply for a full compute project. If you are unsure, please contact us for a consultation at nhr-support@gwdg.de.

The steps to get a Test Account are:

  1. Log in to the HPC Project Portal (see Project Portal for more information). In most cases, your home institution will be automatically detected based on your email address, so federated login is possible. Otherwise, you can register a new account in the AcademicCloud. Please use the federated login if possible and make sure to at least use your institutional e-mail address otherwise.
  2. Request access to HPC resources by sending an email to nhr-support@gwdg.de. Please use the same email address to send the request as listed on your account page, state the username of your AcademicID you see on that page as well and indicate if you are applying for a full project in parallel. Note that an application by a scientist without a PhD (e.g. doctoral students) need to include an eligible scientist from a German University in CC of their request.

Once your request has been verified, you will be added to one of the generic testing projects (for each German state) and receive an email providing information and instructions on how to use your account. A Test Account expires after 9 months, but can be extended upon request. To extend a Test Account, send an email to nhr-support@gwdg.de and make sure to state your HPC userid (e.g. u12345).

Apply for a Project

NHR offers Starter and Test Projects that are intended to test the system and prepare applications for full projects. They come with limited compute resources allocated to them. All projects provide the following extra features over Test Accounts:

  • Dedicated project storage space (see Storage Systems for more information)
  • You can add additional users to the project with shared access to the project’s storage and compute time via the Project Portal.

Only full NHR compute projects can offer compute resources of more than 300 000 core hours per quarter and more than a basic quota on our storage systems.

To apply for any type of NHR project, please refer to Apply for a compute project.