====== Do I Have To Pay? ======

Historically, access to the **Rocket** HPC facility has been free at the point of access. This will not change for the remainder of the lifespan of that facility.

For **Comet**, we have introduced a new funding model. All users; both staff and students, will be able to continue to access HPC resources on the new facility free of charge. 
However, some of the [[https://hpc.researchcomputing.ncl.ac.uk/calc/resources/|resources]] available within the facility will be reserved for projects who are able to contribute financially.

For most resource types (e.g. 'standard compute', 'large memory' etc) you will find published in the [[https://hpc.researchcomputing.ncl.ac.uk/calc/resources/|resources]] section the percentage which are available for users without funding, and those with. In //most cases// this represents approximately 75-80% for funded projects and a corresponding 25-20% for those without funds. Due to the substantial increase in size of Comet, over Rocket, this should not represent a decrease in resources for most users, for most workflows.

==== Free/Unfunded ====

The use of free resources on our HPC facilities continues as normal. If you attempt to launch jobs against resources in a funded Slurm partition your job will not be accepted.

A full report on your project HPC resource utilisation can be accessed through the [[https://hpc.researchcomputing.ncl.ac.uk/projects/|My HPC Projects]] section of the website. You may see //indicative// costs associated with your resource use in these reports, but these are presented for informational purposes only.
==== Premium/Funded ====

To access the resources reserved for funded projects, you should have either contacted the RSE team, or used the [[https://hpc.researchcomputing.ncl.ac.uk/calc/|Cost Calculator]] to model your expected costs over the lifetime of your project, **before** requesting the creation of a new HPC project.

At the point at which your funded HPC project is created, we will contact you to confirm the funds you have available, and allocate them to your project as virtual credits. You will receive monthly invoices, a month in arrears, for any activity which uses those funded resources. You may also still use the unfunded resources as required. A full report on your project HPC resource utilisation can be accessed through the [[https://hpc.researchcomputing.ncl.ac.uk/projects/|My HPC Projects]] section of the website.

For full details about billing, invoicing and your use of funded resources, we recommend reading the policies section on [[policies:billing|Billing & Project Funds]].

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