The Linux cluster provides computational resources for BC faculty members and their research groups. This page contains information including links on how to get an account on the cluster, and how to use the cluster.

Governance

The use of the cluster is guided by the Cluster Policy Committee. The members of this committee are:

  • Nadia Abuelezam (School of Nursing)
  • Stefano Anzellotti (MCAS – Psychology and Neuroscience, Chair of the committee)
  • Lucas Bao (MCAS - Chemistry)
  • Christopher Baum (MCAS - Economics)
  • David Broido (MCAS - Physics)
  • Siddhartan Govindasamy (MCAS – Engineering Department)
  • Summer Hawkins (School of Social work)
  • Michelle Meyer (MCAS - Biology)
  • Matt Gregas (Director Research Services)
  • Sam Ransbotham (Carroll School of Management)
  • Brian Smith (School of Education)
  • Laura L. Steinberg (Schiller Institute)
  • Emily Prud’hommeaux (MCAS – Computer Science)
  • Scott Cann (Technology Director, ITS)
  • Tom Chiles (Vice Provost for Research).

    If you have comments on cluster policy, please contact researchservices@bc.edu or one of the committee members.

    Research Projects

    We ask each research group to submit a short abstract describing their work using the Linux Cluster. The current projects using the cluster, arranged alphabetically by research group, are:

    Hardware

    Andromeda

    The Andromeda cluster was initially installed in the Fall of 2020. It underwent an upgrade in January 2022 and was further expanded in June 2023. In addition to 1 PB of storage and an interactive node, it consists of 226 compute nodes with a total of 12,992 cores and 12 GPU nodes.

    • 92 compute nodes. Each has 2 24-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 CPU (2.40GHz) sharing 192 GB of memory.
    • 134 compute nodes. Each has 2 32-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8352Y CPU (2.20GHz) sharing 256 GB of memory.
    • 3 GPU nodes. Each with 2 24-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 CPU (2.40GHz) sharing 192 GB and 4 Nvidia V100 GPUs. 64GB per GPU node.
    • 4 GPU nodes. Each with 2 32-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8352Y CPU (2.20GHz) sharing 256 GB and 4 Nvidia A100 GPUs. 160GB per GPU node.
    • 3 GPU nodes. Each with 2 32-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8362 CPU (2.8GHz) sharing 256 GB and 4 Nvidia A100 GPUs. 320GB per GPU node.
    • 2 GPU nodes. Each with 2 32-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8362 CPU (2.8GHz) sharing 512 GB and 4 Nvidia A10 GPUs. 96GB per GPU node.

    Request a New Linux Cluster Account

    Requests for new projects and/or additional members for a project must be sent via email to researchservices@bc.edu. New group members requesting access to the cluster as part of an existing project will require approval from the faculty PI for that project.  

    Please include the following information when sending a project or new member request to researchservices@bc.edu:

    • The name of the faculty or Grad responsible for the project.
    • If this is a new project, include a short abstract describing their work on the cluster, which will be displayed on the Research Projects list above.
    • The full name and BC username for all members to be added to the project group. Note: If a collaborator doesn't already have Boston College credentials (BC username & password), they will be required to get a BC affilliate/guest account in order to get BC credentials (we are happy to assist with this process).

    Once an abstract has been submitted, the project owner may request new members be added to their group at any time.

    Once a year we will ask each research group to update/confirm their abstract and the members list for their group(s).

    We also ask that each research group send the following information to researchservices@bc.edu as it becomes available:

    • A list of the publications in which the cluster supported their work.
    • A list of grants submitted in which the cluster was mentioned.
    • A list of funded grants in which the cluster was mentioned (including the duration, amount and funding agency of the grant).