UPPMAX for Undergraduate Education
UPPMAX is part of the national organisation SNIC (Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing) and provides high-performance compute clusters and storage systems for researchers throughout Sweden. While the environment is particularly useful for education in computer-intensive subjects such as numerical analysis, computational physics, computer linguistics and bioinformatics, UPPMAX resources can be used to advantage in all educational subjects where intense computer calculations is part of the course work. Using UPPMAX resources in education increases the course's relevance by promoting a close connection to research and giving students experience using a high-quality digital research environment.
The service "UPPMAX for education" gives course participants access to a compute cluster, a common data storage, and cloud resources at Uppsala University's center for high-performance computers and large-scale storage. Course coordinators receive assistance in getting their projects started with calculation time and storage space, which teachers and students then gain access to through a membership.
Support is handled by IT Service Desk. Course coordinators and teachers can receive help to install software and other efforts needed to get started with their environment on the system.
Note 1: Teaching sessions that require access to UPPMAX for training should not be scheduled around the first Wednesday of every month, as the systems can be taken down for maintenance during that time. More information can be found at: https://www.uppmax.uu.se/support/getting-started/course-projects/
Note 2: User data and configurations are not stored after course completion.
Options | Restrictions | Hardware | Comment | Guides |
SNOWY - HPC cluster - 1 TB storage included - GPU available | Up to 2000 core hours/month with regular priority, unlimited with low priority. | 16 cores and 128 GB RAM per node. | Extensive software libraries are available on the system. Login via SSH or ThinLinc. Linux. | |
DIS - OpenStack cloud | Up to 100 cores in constant need. | The customer states the desired number of cores and amount of memory per VM, as well as the total number of floating IP addresses. | Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Linux VMs. Available as part of SNIC Science Cloud (SSC) region East-1. |
Price and billing
The UPPMAX service for Education is offered at 4 price levels depending on how many participants there are in the course. The price differs between the disciplinary domains depending on how they have chosen to contribute to the financing of the basic education resources at UPPMAX *. The base price for all courses is 25,100 kr per 25 students, regardless of disciplinary domain. A subtotal of this fee is charged per course according to the table below. Billing takes place per four-month period after the start of the course.
Fees after co-financing per domain: | HumSam | MedFarm | TekNat |
Small (up to 25 students) | 16,700 kr | 21,200 kr | 8,100 kr |
Medium (up to 50 students) | 33,400 kr | 42,400 kr | 16,200 kr |
Large (up to 75 students) | 50,100 kr | 63,600 kr | 24,600 kr |
X-Large (unlimited number of students) | 66,800 kr | 84,800 kr | 32,800 kr |
* The Faculty for Science and Technology, the Department of Information Technology, the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences and the Department of Linguistics and Philology co-finance resources UPPMAX for Undergraduate Education.
Ordering and cancellations
Orders are placed to IT Service Desk no later than 2 weeks before the start of the course. Orders must include the following information:
- Choice of "SNOWY" or "DIS". For the "DIS" option, the customer must also specify the desired number of cores and memory amount per VM, as well as the total number of floating IP addresses.
- Approval from the head of department or equivalent
- Raindance project number for billing
- Course start and end dates
- Course code
- Number of students
Orders can be terminated until 1 week before the start of the course.