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Getting access to SUNBIRD2

Access to the SUNBIRD2 cluster is available to researchers at Swansea University and Aberystwyth University, and their collaborators.

Note

External access

If you are in need of paid high-performance computing resources, please reach out to SA2C Support to discuss a possible arrangement.

Access to SUNBIRD2 requires two things:

  • A user account
  • Membership of a Supercomputing Wales project

If you previously had access to the previous SUNBIRD system, your existing account and project memberships, and your cluster password, will carry forward; you do not need to reapply.

Requesting an account

Swansea and Aberystwyth University researchers

To obtain an account, please fill out the account request form. Please provide a one-sentence summary of the sort of research activities you plan.

User accounts are manually created on request, so please allow a few days for this to be processed.

External collaborators

Please ask your Swansea or Aberystwyth University research collaborator to open a support ticket, providing your name and email address, and the Supercomputing Wales project code to which you should be added.

Credentials

You will be sent the following information:

  • Username
  • For Swansea University users, this will take the form s.f.lastname or s.firstname.lastname, the same as your institutional email addres
  • For Aberystwyth University users, this will take the form a.fml12, the same as your institutional email addres
  • For external collaborators, this will take the form x.f.l.01
  • Password: This is separate to your institutional password, and is specific for Supercomputing Wales services.

Projects

All work on SUNBIRD2 must be associated with a project, to allow us to demonstrate to others the variety of research performed on the machine.

Joining a project

If you are collaborating with someone who has a Supercomputing Wales project (for example, if you are a PhD student joining an ongoing research activity), ask the project owner to open a support ticket, providing your name, email address, and username, and the Supercomputing Wales project code to which you should be added.

Creating a new project

If no one is already working on your research, you will need to request a new project, by filling in the project request form.

Please note that all projects on SUNBIRD2 must be supported by a permanent member of research staff; if you are a student or postdoc on a fixed term contract, your supervisor or manager must endorse the project.

Please provide as much relevant detail on the form as you are able to. Project requests are reviewed manually, so please allow a few days for this process to complete. In some cases we will get in touch to verify details; the sooner you respond to these requests, the sooner we will be able to create your project.