Services and Pricing Structure

Services and prices are subject to change.

Research Computing is a core facility of the Research Technology Office under Knowledge Enterprise.  
Research Computing supports research and instructional activities for ASU and follows the mission of Knowledge Enterprise and ASU.

Project-Based Storage

This high-speed storage is directly mounted to the ASU supercomputers and it is ready for use.

Notes about Storage

• Users may purchase project storage by submitting a ticket or by emailing rtshelp@asu.edu.

• Research groups can receive a 100GB directory mounted onto the ASU supercomputers for free by submitting a ticket or by emailing rtshelp@asu.edu.

• Customer-purchased or managed storage arrays are not allowed.

Project Storage Backup Policies

• Snapshots are taken at the array level nightly

  • Snapshots are done on the resilient array, but are not redundant

  • Data is not copied to a second array by default

  • Snapshots are kept for a maximum of 2 weeks

• All data is kept on-site and is not replicated to secondary storage by default.

• Cloud backups can be accommodated with prior notification.  Please contact ASU Research Computing support to arrange cloud backups by submitting a ticket or emailing rtshelp@asu.edu.

Long Term Storage

Our long-term tape storage is accessible through the Globus Data Transfer Node (DTN).

Notes about Storage

• Users may purchase long-term storage by submitting a ticket or by emailing rtshelp@asu.edu

Long-Term Storage Policies

• The long-term storage is not directly accessible via the supercomputer

• All data is kept on-site and is not replicated to secondary storage by default

• Recall times can vary based on data volume and demand

Physical Server Co-Location

Notes about Co-Location

• Additional Network Connections above 1GB are available please get in touch with Research Computing for more details.

• Physical co-location servers are unmanaged by Research Computing.  That is the servers must be managed by the customer and must include timely security updates. 

• Failure to apply patches will result in the system being taken offline.

Virtual Machines

Notes about Virtual Machines:

• Additional network connections, vCPU, memory, and disk may be available separately.

• The base OS is installed, windows or Linux

• All licensed software must be purchased by the customer (including any Windows licenses)

• Virtual machines (VM) are unmanaged by Research Computing. The VM must be managed by the customer and must include timely security updates. 

• Failure to apply patches will result in the system being taken offline.

• Please contact Research Computing (RC) by submitting a ticket request or by emailing rtshelp@asu.edu.

VM Backup Policies

• Snapshots are taken at the VM host level nightly

  • Snapshots are saved on the back-end iSCSI storage array which is resilient, but not redundant

  • Data is not copied to a second array by default

  • Snapshots are kept for 1 week with a monthly snapshot kept for 1 month

• Databases require specialized backups or they may not be consistent.  Contact RC support if you need to back up a database

• All data is kept on-site by default and is not replicated to secondary storage by default

• Cloud backups can be accommodated with prior notification.  Please contact RC support to arrange cloud backups

HPC Private Partitions

ASU Research Computing (ASURC) will support faculty-purchased vendor hardware within the high-performance supercomputer, including supplying rack space, power, cooling, and networking. Faculty can purchase from the pre-approved compute nodes (see below). These nodes are created into a private partition on the supercomputer that is available to the faculty member and supporting group.

Idle private partitions will be open to use by the ASU community through the wildfire queue.  Jobs submitted to the wildfire queue on private partitions will be guaranteed to run without preemption for a period of at least 4 hours. The owning faculty may reserve private partitions for immediate priority access for up to three 1-week periods per year.

ASURC will support faculty-purchased hardware for as long as feasible; however, beyond the warranty period of the hardware, the faculty is responsible for any hardware and labor costs necessary to maintain the hardware. If Research Computing deems that supporting hardware beyond the warranty period is not technically feasible, it will be removed from the supercomputer.

Dell Pre-Approved Compute and GPU Node Examples

Please contact us for the most up-to-date pricing and for additional configuration options.

Notes about Pre-Approved Compute Nodes:

• Additional configurations and quotes can be generated via a request to the ticket system or by emailing rtshelp@asu.edu.

• Note: Compute node purchases are tax-exempt. Research Computing will provide appropriate tax exemption forms with each quote.

Consulting Services

Notes about Consulting Services

• These are rates that can be used in grant writing as part of the rates and services RTO provides in these areas

• Consulting on grants can be done on a case-by-case basis without hourly rates