Services We Provide#

Facilitation of HPC resources#

Compute#

The Research Computing team at NU offer technical support to all researchers using NU’s high-performance computing (HPC) resources. Our technical experts assist users in harnessing the full potential of the cluster’s computational resources. Our services are designed to empower you to take full advantage of the HPC resources available for your research.

Storage#

We have many file storage solutions available to members of the Northeastern Community and provide tailored solutions to cater to both long-term high-capacity storage needs and dynamic storage requirements for active research. Our technical team works closely with researchers to design data management strategies, facilitating seamless data movement, backup, and restoration.

Classroom#

At Research Computing we extend our expertise beyond research contexts to provide comprehensive support for classroom use of NU’s computational resources. Our skilled team collaborates with educators to integrate high-performance computing into curricula, enhancing students’ learning experiences. We offer tailored workshops and training sessions that empower instructors to incorporate computational techniques into their courses. From introductory coding exercises to advanced simulations, we assist in designing educational content that leverages the power of our computing cluster. Our technical staff ensures that students have access to the necessary tools and resources, enabling them to explore real-world applications of computational methods.

Consultations#

We encourage you to schedule a consultation with one of our staff members to receive personal, one-on-one assistance for your research computing and data storage needs. Consultations are available to any Northeastern student, faculty, or staff member. We can help you get started on the cluster, optimize your code, benchmark, install and use software packages, detail data storage options, and more.

We offer consultations by appointment most weekdays during regular business hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Just so you know, we follow the Northeastern University holiday schedule, so no consultations are available on holidays or during breaks. All consultations are conducted online through the Teams app.

Use our Bookings page to view our availability and schedule an appointment. You must sign in using your @northeastern.edu email address (for example, a.student@northeastern.edu).

Training sessions#

The RC Team provides free online training sessions for cluster users and Northeastern Students interested in learning more.

If you’re new to Discovery or HPC, we strongly recommend watching the Discovery Introduction Video. You’ll need to sign in using your Northeastern username and password to view the video.

Recorded RC training sessions have been added to the Research Computing Training Course in Canvas. Once you’ve clicked the link to enroll, you must log in using your Northeastern credentials.

The training sessions cover a wide range of skill levels, from beginner to advanced, and offer you the opportunity to explore training sessions at your own pace in the areas that you’re most interested in (e.g., Linux and Shell Scripting, Slurm Arrays, Software Installation, GPUs, Bioinformatics, Deep Learning, and LAMMPs). You can perform hands-on training exercises by accessing RC files shared on GitHub repositories.

If you are a faculty member using Discovery with your class and would like us to develop or present a personalized training session for your class, please reach out to us at rc.northeastern.edu. All Discovery users can also reach out with suggestions for future training topics!

Collaboration#

The team at RC @ NU is composed of full-time PhD scientists whose expertise spans diverse fields (e.g., Machine Learning, Data Analytics, Molecular Dynamics, Bioinformatics, and Big Data). We are eagerly open to collaboration with researchers in multiple phases of their research including:

  • Grant/proposal development and idea generation

  • Data cleaning and transforming

  • Data analysis

  • Statistical modeling

  • Data visualization (exploratory and publication quality)

  • Container building/development

  • HPC workflow optimization

  • Final publication preparation

  • Course Development

  • Reproducibility

Please reach out via a consultation or by emailing rchelp@northeastern.edu if you’re interested any of the above (or more) services.

Citation Information#

If you feel your research has benefited from support from RC @ NU or want to acknowledge the cluster please use one of the statements below:

This work was completed in part using the Discovery cluster, supported by Northeastern University’s Research Computing team.

This work was completed using the Discovery cluster at MGHPC for Northeastern University.