Illinois Campus Cluster access for ACES Researchers

High-performance computers have become essential to research in many disciplines across the Illinois campus. The Illinois Campus Cluster is a campus-wide resource that meets this need for research computing cycles. In December 2022, the College of ACES invested in 3 dedicated nodes for use by researchers in the college. While this number of nodes is down from the previous 2017 investment the total number of available compute cores is up from 280 to 384. This update was funded by support from the ACES Office of Research and Office of the Dean. The ACES queue of the campus cluster is freely available to all ACES researchers.

Is the Illinois Campus Cluster right for your research?

Researchers choose to use the Illinois Campus Cluster for various reasons. It can be used to run statistical models using applications such as "R" or Python. Others make use of Matlab, Mathematica, or Octave for research related calculations. Custom applications compatible with the Enterprise Linux platform can also be accommodated in most cases. A full list of pre-installed applications can be seen at this link: https://campuscluster.illinois.edu/resources/software/.

Signing Up

ACES researchers can register for a free account on the Illinois Campus Cluster website using this user request web form: https://campuscluster.illinois.edu/new_forms/user_form.php
  • When requesting an account be sure to choose “ACES” as the primary queue in the “Professor/Advisor” section of the form.
  • Doctoral candidates or Master’s students should be sure to include correct information for their advisor in the form because this information will be the basis for their approval to use the ACES nodes. 

After the form is submitted

Once the form is submitted it will go through a short approval process before the account is provisioned and access to the resource is granted.  Most user request forms are completed within a few days.  If you've not received a response in a timely fashion you can email help@campuscluster.illinois.edu to check on the status of the request.

Getting started using the cluster 

After the account has been created you can access the cluster using ssh at cc-login.campuscluster.illinois.edu 
  • Graphical User Interface (GUI) - when logging in from a Windows based machine:
 
  • Command Line Interface (CLI) - when logging in from a linux/unix based system(Fedora, SuSE, Mac OS, etc...):
 
 

ACES shared project space

ACES has a shared project space located in the /projects/aces directory.  Each user has a folder in this directory.  By default, it is a shared directory.  If you would like to have access to it limited you can send a request to techsupport@aces.illinois.edu being sure to list the netids that should be granted access to the directory.

Helpful links when learning to use the cluster

Illinois Campus Cluster page
https://campuscluster.illinois.edu/
ICC Getting Started
https://campuscluster.illinois.edu/resources/docs/start/
ICC User Guide
https://campuscluster.illinois.edu/resources/docs/user-guide/
User FAQ
https://campuscluster.illinois.edu/resources/faq/
Using MATLAB on the ICC
https://campuscluster.illinois.edu/resources/docs/user-guide/using-matlab-on-the-campus-cluster/