U.S-based graduate students are eligible to be PIs for entry-level awards with an advisor letter of collaboration. If you already have an ACCESS account welcome back.
It’s easy to get started.
1
Create an account
To use ACCESS resources and manage your project, create an account.
2
See what resources are available
ACCESS Resource Providers from across the United States provide you access to NSF-funded advanced computing systems and services at no cost to you.
3
Prepare and request an allocation
With your ACCESS ID, apply for an allocation and receive credits to use a resource. An EXPLORE or DISCOVER ACCESS allocation project type are available for graduate students.
Quick links:
- Eligibility
- Find the best resource for your project
- Find software
- Explore current projects
- Add users to your project
- Systems status news
- Open a help ticket
What type of ACCESS resources are available?
ACCESS Resource Providers from across the United States provide you access to advanced computing systems and services – at no cost to you.
Some of the many resources in the ACCESS portfolio include:
- Compute resources – High-performance computing clusters (GPU and CPU based) accessed by logging in to front-end nodes. Researchers can install their application software and run batch computing jobs under a scheduler on these resources.
- Storage resources – Data storage systems for storing and managing large amounts of data.
- Cloud resources – Cloud infrastructure where researchers can launch and run virtual machines.
- Science gateways – A community-developed set of tools, applications, and data integrated through a web-based portal or a suite of applications built to use ACCESS resources.
Explore the ACCESS Resource Catalog for a list of current resources.
What type of allocation project types are available to graduate students?
ACCESS offers two allocation project types for graduate students:
DISCOVER ACCESS – Designed for research grants with modest resource needs, Campus Champions, large classes and training events, NSF graduate fellowships, benchmarking and code testing at scale, and gateway development.
EXPLORE ACCESS – Great for resource evaluation, graduate student projects, small classes and training events, benchmarking, code development and porting, and similar small-scale uses.
Each project type has different requirements, duration, review process and credit amounts to use.
Where can I find training and documentation?
Visit the Events & Trainings page. If you join an Affinity Group you’ll get notified of trainings recommended by your Resource Provider or your community group.
The ACCESS Documentation pages contain articles, training materials, user guides, and various other sources of information to assist researchers in effectively utilizing ACCESS resources and services.
The ACCESS Knowledge Base includes training material and documentation contributed by the community on a variety of topics of interest.ACCESS is a large ecosystem and can be overwhelming. We are here to help every step of the way.
Are support services available?
Ask.CI is the Q&A forum for the research computing community. Ask a question, answer a question, or add to the discussion.
Campus Champions provide information on ACCESS and cyberinfrastructure resources to researchers and educators on their campuses and they assist users to quickly get start-up allocations of computing time. Find a Champion on your campus!
CCMNet facilitates cyberinfrastructure (CI) mentorship connections and knowledge exchange with other mentor-centric programs, reaching out to under-served groups and providing best practices and guidance on mentorship to benefit the entire CI community. Review currently available mentorships or request a new mentorship engagement to assist with your needs.
ACCESS MATCH services connects researchers with a consultant, student or mentor to help solve your research problems.
Still need help? Open a help ticket and ACCESS or appropriate Resource Provider staff will be happy to answer your questions.
How do I prepare and request an allocation?
With your ACCESS ID, apply for an allocation and receive credits to use a resource.
Be prepared to submit a proposal that includes:
- Scientific background and justification for your research
- Clearly defined research questions
- A detailed resource usage plan outlining your computational needs
- Justification for the amount of resources you’re requesting
- Information on any other computing resources you have access to
Are there tools available to run my project?
ACCESS is “self-serve.” You connect directly to the resource you need and run the software necessary to complete your task. ACCESS OnDemand is an easy-to-use web interface that gives you remote access from any device, without requiring any client software installation. For those who need workflows/pipelines or cross-site runs, Pegasus is an easy-to-use workflow management tool managed from within a Jupyter Notebook.
Are reports and citations required by ACCESS?
Progress reports are required in order to receive the second half of your ACCESS credits. At this point you may request a one-time increase in credits and/or extension. Upon completion a final report must be submitted summarizing the work and acknowledging ACCESS. Publications can be added using the My Publications tool.
How do I track my project’s performance quality?
Use ACCESS XDMoD to improve your job and allocation-usage efficiency. Log in and click on the Job Viewer tab. Enter your job number and resource in the search box to see how efficiently your job is running.
How do I manage my project and add other users?
You’ll need to have the role of PI, co-PI, or Allocation Manager to request/manage projects and add users.
How can I get involved in the ACCESS community?
There are many opportunities for graduate students to get involved with the ACCESS community – as a reviewer, moderator, beta tester, mentor, and more.
I’m a graduate student
The multiple-GPU setup via Delta made training significantly more efficient and enabled faster research iteration on our ideas. In just three months, we went from initial research formulation to implementation, resulting in work accepted at ICML, one of the top ML conferences worldwide.”
RISHUB TAMIRISA
student researcher, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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Tiny Metallic Tools
Penn State researchers use their ACCESS allocation with Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to discover 20 new nanoparticle structures.