RCS Home Page
NOTE: The https://rcs.ucalgary.ca technical documentation page web site is being developed by Research Computing Services as an easier-to-maintain replacement for the old https://hpc.ucalgary.ca web site. Pages on the old site will not be updated and will be retired as corresponding information is incorporated into this new site.
The demand for and use of scientific computing cycles at the University of Calgary is running at an all-time high. Researcher-based institutional, multi-institutional, and national initiatives have been very successful in attracting external funding to increase the computational power available to researchers at the University in the form of High Performance Computing (HPC). HPC is the term used to describe the high-end computing resources – computers, storage, networking and visualization – that, together, are used to help solve highly complex real-world problems, or to run computationally intensive workloads of a scale far beyond the tasks that could be achieved on today's leading desktop systems. Advanced Research Computing is a similar term that is slightly more inclusive than traditional HPC.
There is a High Performance Computing group within Research Computing Services, one of the functional divisions of Information Technologies. The HPC group is made up of Systems and Application Analysts and provides services to researchers in support of HPC. This web site provides a focal point for that HPC support for U of C researchers. Among the keywords that might lead you to contact us are Research Computing, ARC, HPC, WestGrid, Compute Canada, Storm, Helix, big data, programming, debugging, visualization, cluster and Linux.
Contact us:
- For general enquiries: support@hpc.ucalgary.ca.
- For Compute Canada specific questions: support@computecanada.ca.
RCS has an office at the Foothills campus. It is HSC B200D, it is in the basement in the IT area, but the main entrance is through the IT reception in G204Z, on the left of the book store. If you would like to have a face-to-face meeting with an analyst, please, arrange an appointment beforehand.
Cluster Guides
- ARC cluster - ARC is a general purpose cluster for University of Calgary researchers.
- Helix cluster - Helix is a specialized cluster mainly provided for Cumming School of Medicine projects
- GLaDOS cluster - GLaDOS is a researcher-owned cluster maintained by Research Computing Services.
- TALC - (external link) Teaching and Learning Cluster (TALC) is a cluster created by Research Computing Services to support academic courses and workshops.
Software pages
- Managing software on ARC
- Using Conda
- Gaussian on ARC -- How to use Gaussian 16 on ARC.
- Apache Spark on ARC
Running courses on HPC resources
- TALC - (external link) Teaching and Learning Cluster (TALC) is a cluster created by Research Computing Services to support academic courses and workshops.
- TALC Terms of Use - Terms of use to which TALC account holders must agree to use the cluster.
Training
- HPC Linux topics - A list of topics on which RCS technical support staff can provide one-on-one or group training
- What is a scheduler?
- Slurm: Running jobs
- Data storage options for UofC researchers
- How to transfer data