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Applying for an NHR project#

According to NHR Verein applying for compute time can:

Scientists with a doctoral degree who belong to a German accredited university are eligible to apply. Within the scope of the approved projects, non-doctoral scientists can also use the computers.

Scientific offerings#

NHR@FAU offers support especially in the area of performance optimization and atomistic simulations, i.e. molecular dynamics, chemistry, and certain areas of material sciences. Special experience is in particular available for Gromacs, Amber, and VASP.

Available compute resources#

We offer resources on two types of clusters for NHR projects:

  • GPU cluster Alex:
    • 304 Nvidia A100 GPGPUs (160 A100 with 40 GB RAM, 144 with 80 GB RAM)
    • 352 Nvidia A40 GPGPUs (with 48 GB RAM)
  • CPU cluster Fritz:
    • 992 nodes with 2 x 36 Intel "Ice Lake" processors and 256 GB RAM
    • 64 nodes with 2 x 52 Intel "Sapphire Rapids" processors with 1 and 2 TB RAM

NHR project types#

The review process typically takes less than 3 months. Test / porting projects will be decided within 3 – 4 weeks.

Runtime for normal projects is 12 months.

Details of the resource limits listed in the table are still subject to change.

type of project resources on Alex (GPU hours) resources on Fritz (CPU hours) reviews remarks
test / porting, runtime: 3 – 4 months ≤ 3.000 ≤ 500.000 technical review rolling call
starter, runtime: ≤ 12 months ≤ 10.000 ≤ 1.000.000 technical review rolling call, can only be requested once per group
normal for granted DFG or BMBF projects A40: 6.000 – 60.000, A100: 4.000 – 40.000 1 – 10 M technical review and simplified scientific review rolling call
normal without granted DFG or BMBF projects A40: 6.000 – 60.000, A100: 4.000 – 40.000 1 – 10 M technical review and two external scientific reviews rolling call
large A40: 60.000 – 180.000, A100: 40.000 – 120.000 10 – 30 M technical review and two external scientific reviews deadlines January/April/July/October 1st.
follow-up as above as above technical review, external scientific review, intermediate report

A scientific advisor from NHR@FAU will be assigned to a project.

Projects falling into the large category should also consider applying for compute time at one of the three federal Tier1 HPC centers of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS).

How to apply for an NHR project#

Via JARDS#

Mandatory for Large Scale Applications! You can apply via the central online application portal JARDS.

Additionally, we require some supplemental information. Please fill out this template, save it as a single PDF, and upload it to JARDS, when you finish your application.

Via document template (for test, porting, normal projects)#

Please use this template for project applications and send it by email from your university account to hpc-support@fau.de.

The document contains detailed information on what to fill in depending on the type of project. For further assistance contact hpc-support@fau.de.

Template for NHR project report#

At the end of your NHR@FAU project you are required to write a report. Use this template for your report and send it from your university account to hpc-support@fau.de.

Acknowledgment#

Please acknowledge resources and the support provided by NHR@FAU, see Acknowledging resource usage for formulations.

Please also send electronic copies of these publications by email to nhr-redaktion@lists.fau.de. Proper acknowledgments of our services is important for our center's evaluation and its future funding.