Resources are allocated per research group , although for practical reasons disk space is currently allocated per user. Your research group is the same as your UNIX user group, and in the vast majority of cases will be the name of a faculty member. Resource limits are determined by a sum of two components: a base allotment, uniform for all accounts, and additional resources which are compensation for assisting RCF. Currently this assistance may be either financial or by acknowledgement of RCF in peer-reviewed publications.

All accounts on RCF machines are to be 'owned' by the research advisor or head of the group you signed up with. This does not allow for a research advisor to snoop through his/her groups' files, but does allow them to retrieve data for research purposes. Further, all files on RCF machines can be searched through by RCF admins for purposes of solving machine problems (ie. checking for breaking of policy or trying to find out why the machine is being bogged down) or for machine security.

Base Allotment per Group

• Up to 4 cpu's cycles.
• Up to 2 GB RAM.

Base Allotment per User (disk space)

• Undergraduates: 500 MB.
• Graduates: 2 GB.
• PostDocs and Faculty: 10 GB.
• Additional scratch space is available.

Additional Allotment of Resources

• +2 cpu's cycles per RCF-acknowledged publication per year (up to 16 total)
• +1 GB RAM per RCF-acknowledged publication per year (up to 8 total)
• financial assistance is compensated on a case-by-case basis
• additional disk space may be allocated where appropriate needs dictate

This machine is to be used as a resource for research which cannot be carried out routinely elsewhere on campus. Any otherwise legal recreational use will not be accepted. rcf serves multiple purposes; the above policies are intended to balance various user needs, including the following:

• Shared Memory code
• Parallelized code
• Jobs requiring large amounts of memory
• Jobs requiring fast IO
• Jobs requiring fast network connectivity, including interactive X traffic
• Web-based applications ( rcf has I2 connectivity)
• Support programs. rcf provides analysis GUI's, maple, MATLAB, latex, gnuplot, and various other resources that are not in themselves research code, but assist researchers.

If a user needs higher performance than rcf can provide, we recommend PrairieFire , a cluster supercomputer with roughly 10 times the power of rcf . Any suggestions to improve these guidelines should be sent to David Swanson , Director of RCF . Please notify him if you believe another user is violating these limits.

Acknowlegement of RCF

Users are asked to include the following line as acknowledgement of RCF use: This work was completed utilizing the Research Computing Facility of the University of Nebraska -- Lincoln. To receive allocation credit for publications including an RCF acknowledgement, users must add the reference to the RCF data base. Automated forms are available on this site for this purpose.

If possible, we ask to be sent a copy of any presentation or publication that results in entirely or in part from use of RCF. Please send an electronic copy to David Swanson , Director of RCF, and/or a hard copy to David Swanson, 213B Ferguson Hall, UNL 68588-0115.

Accounting and Fees

Accounting software is presently installed and operating. Allocation fees have not been determined at this time, and presently no user fees will be charged. Nonetheless, all users should be aware that a fee system may be implemented in the future. This would, of course, be preceded by notification of all users, and no back charges will be assessed at any time. It is possible a fee system would be similar to the current allocation scheme, with a free base allotment, and fees replacing credit for acknowledgements.