Policies - Access, Accounts & Projects

Every user must pass the HPC Driving Test before an account will be provisioned on the facility for them. If you have not passed the HPC Driving Test you will be requested to do so before any access request is processed.

• The HPC Driving Test is available to all Newcastle University IT account holders from the HPC Portal website.
• Your HPC Driving Test (Newcastle University account holders only)

All users must be holders of an existing Newcastle University IT account. Local accounts will not be provisioned.

Creation of accounts is not within the scope of the HPC service. Please see the guidance on the main IT Service website:

• https://services.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/services/core/account-admin/

If you apply for an account on the the BEDE Tier 2 facility you will go through an approval process jointly operated by Durham and Newcastle University.

Your application will only be approved if you have applied for BEDE access using your Newcastle University email address. If you use a personal email address it will not be accepted.

Every user of the HPC must be a member of at least one project. add in details - who can create a project?

To create a new project the following information is required:

• Name of the project
• Description of the project or research activity
• Description of the software tools, techniques or processing being undertaken within the HPC in relation to the project or research activity (make this shorter)
• Two members of staff with the HPC Project Owner role:
  • A primary project owner who can edit the project details, manage members and access the HPC facilities
  • A secondary project owner (to be contacted in the event of the primary being unavailable)
• An indication on whether HPC use has been included in the project/research costing

You can submit your HPC Project request under the 'My HPC Projects' link from the site top menu bar.

Once a project has been created, the project owners may add subsequent members using the 'My HPC Projects' area within the HPC Portal. These members may have the following roles:

• HPC Project Manager - Able to invite and manage other members of the project. Able to log in to the HPC facility.
• HPC Project Member - Able to log in to the HPC facility.

There are several restrictions on the creation of new HPC projects:

• To request a new HPC project you must have passed the HPC Driving Test
• The owners of a project must be permanent members of staff at Newcastle University.
• Generic ‘group’ or ‘lab’ project groups are not permitted. All projects must be created for a well-defined research activity or project.
• You may invite users who have not yet passed the HPC Driving Test, but they will not be allowed to access the HPC until they have passed.

If the HPC Project Owner(s) of a project leave the University, the project must be reassigned to another, permanent member of staff. It is not permitted for a project to be operational without a nominated owner; projects left in this state will be made inactive and log in / access to the HPC will be revoked.

In the event of a project owner leaving, please contact the Research Software Engineering team to arrange transfer of the project.

Every project will be subject to a yearly audit to ensure that they are still required and are still being used for the purposes for which they were created. Registered project owners will be required to respond to these audit requests. If a satisfactory response is not returned on time, then the project will be archived.

• Archival of projects results in the members of that project being unable to access the HPC facility (unless they are members of other, active projects)
• If a project member has left, then the project owner will be requested to take ownership of any files or data which are present in the NOBACKUP project directory

Project owners are responsible for ensuring that the description of their project and their software tools/processes are accurate, as these will be published on the HPC portal

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