Revision as of 22:55, 7 April 2023

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Introduction

Viper, the University of Hull’s High Performance Computing facility, is used by research staff and students in many disciplines across the University and is a potentially significant tool for those with any sort of computational element to their research. Viper is a ‘cluster’ of approximately 200 computes built into a cluster, and features more than 6000 compute cores, high memory systems and GPU technology together with dedicated high performance storage and fast interconnect between systems to meet the needs of the most computationally demanding tasks. Some notes about

• Viper runs Linux, though to make use of Viper you do not need to be a Linux expert – being familiar with just a few commands is enough to get started.
• Viper runs a scheduler, a piece of software which manages access to the computers across the cluster, monitoring what is running and how resources such as memory, cpu processors and GPU cards are being used.
• Users run ‘jobs’ some of which are interactive (like Jupyter Notebook sessions) but many of which are submitted to run automatically without user interaction. Jobs usually have a batch script, a text file containing recipe for the job, for example what resource is needed and what the job should do.

Prerequisites

• Viper account - to apply for a Viper account, please see Viper account application page
• VPN - in order to access Viper from off campus or apply for an account from off campus, you will need a VPN account. Please see GlobalProtect Client VPN Service page on the Support Portal

Using Viper

A guide is available for step by step instructions for DAIM students to make use of Viper: Guide to Jupyter Notebooks on Viper

Available Resource

While Viper has a range of GPU resources available, including Nvidia A40 and Nvidia P100 based systems, such resource is in high demand and as such at times there may be contention for resource meaning long pend times.

We would advise reviewing available resource options:

• DAIM lab machines