Request access to ALICE

Everybody who uses ALICE must be associated with an approved High Performance Computing (HPC) Research Project. This could be a larger research programme or cover a research group within, or across, departments.

• List of current research projects

This enables the University to:

• Group ALICE users together
• Know what sort of research the service is being used for
• Track funding sources, where they exist, for the research being carried out
• Provide a structure for allowing data to be shared between collaborating users
• Manage data for users when they leave the University or stop working on a particular project

Register your research project

Anyone can register a project, though usually it would be somebody in a supervisory role. To register a project:

1. Go to the Self Service portal
2. Click the link Self Service Portal at the top of the page
3. Click the Create Service Request button on the left-hand side of the page
4. Click on the I need to link at the top of the page and select Register a research project for access to HPC cluster. Click OK
5. Follow the Instructions provided then click the Submit button. Specify at least one alternative Principal Investigator (PI) if possible. This will allow us to get approval for new user accounts more quickly should the PI be away. The details of a project's funding body are not used in the approval process but are key to developing a business case for long term continuation of the service.

Once submitted, the project request will be considered by the HPC Management Board. This is usually a formality and approval should be granted within 2-3 days.

Research Projects will be assigned a unique Unix group on ALICE. All associated accounts of a project will have this as a secondary group.

Request an account

Project PIs and their alternative PIs will automatically get an account on ALICE when their project is approved. Requests for new user accounts can come directly from the PI or one of the Project's designated alternative PIs. Other people can request their own account, but this will need approval from the appropriate PI(s).

To request a new ALICE account, either contact the IT Service Desk or use the Self Service portal:

1. Click the link Self Service Portal at the top of the page
2. Click the Create Service Request button on the left-hand side of the page
3. Click on the I need to link at the top of the page and select Request for new user account(s) on HPC cluster. Click OK
4. Follow the Instructions provided then click the Submit button

You will receive an email notification when your account has been created.