MSI Terminology

The following words and phrases are used throughout the MSI website and unless otherwise stated, the meaning of these terms is defined as follows. Please be aware that the definitions given here are not intended to be universal; rather, the definitions are specifically tailored to fit the environment at MSI.

General Terms

  • Active Group - Group that has renewed or opened during the current calendar year.

  • Annual Renewal - There is a renewal period where PIs must declare that they wish to have continued access; notices are generally sent out on November 1.

  • Class Account - A temporary group, generally 1 semester, that is provisioned for instructors that would like to make use of compute resources.

  • Group Admin - User role that can be applied to project members to grant a few administrative permissions.

  • Group Member - User whose account is associated with an active group.

  • MSI Project - Group owned by a PI with access to MSI systems.

  • MyMSI - Web portal for managing MSI Projects, memberships, storage allocation, annual renewals.

  • PI - Principal Investigator

  • Open OnDemand (OOD) - Web resource for accessing compute resources

  • Regulated Project - A group that is verified to have completed a data use agreement (DUC) to work with protected datasets.

  • Restricted Project - Generally a group that has access to compute resources on our HIPAA compliant cluster Blackwell.

  • Standard Project - Default project type

  • Tutorials - Series of instructor-led training material that is presented every semester.

Compute Terms

  • Compute Node - A compute resource typically CPU-only.

  • CPU, Task, Thread, Worker - Single unit of compute, e.g., 1 Node on Agate has 128 tasks available from 2 physical CPUs that each have 64 threads.

  • GPU Node - A compute resource that also has one or more GPUs.

  • Login Node - ‘Front Door’ node, intended for interfacing with the Job Scheduler and navigating filesystem.

  • Memory (RAM) - Volatile short-term memory; a single node is limited by the amount of memory physically installed.

  • Node - Single ‘computer’ that is made up of CPUs, Memory, GPUs; A single job can have one to many nodes associated.

  • Temp Disk, Local Scratch - Storage that is local to the physical node. - /tmp - /scratch.local/

Storage Terms

  • Allocation - Requested storage and files after Annual renewal or Supplemental Storage request.

  • Bucket - A ‘directory’ in Tier 2, as an object-based filesystem, it does not have the same concept of directories as on Tier1.

  • File Quota - Maximum individual file limit.

  • Global Scratch - Temporary scratch space that is available to all users for large bursts of data. - /scratch.global/

  • Globus - Browser-based interface for moving data between Tier 1 and Tier 2.

  • Home Directory - Private user directory. - /users/[0-9]/<UMN InternetID>

  • Local Scratch - Storage space available local to the compute resource. - --tmp <Amount>GB

  • Policy - Tier 2 permissions on a Bucket, by default only the owner has access.

  • Project Space - File path to where the MSI Project can store data. - /projects/standard/<Project Name>/

  • Shared Space - Directory named ‘shared’ in the Project space. - /projects/standard/<Project Name>/shared

  • Snapshot - Storage backup service that runs on Tier 1, Standard Project spaces, and User directories. - cd .snapshot

  • Storage Quota - Maximum storage limit.

  • Supplemental Storage Request - Storage increase request filled out on MyMSI to increase storage limit for the calendar year.

  • Tier 1 - Main storage resource available to groups.

  • Tier 2 - Object-based storage system available to groups for storing objects that are not frequently used.

Slurm Terms

  • Batch Job - Shell script that is placed into the queue and will run once it becomes eligible, not in real-time.

  • Features, Constraints - Feature tags applied to differentiate between generations of compute node types.

  • Interactive Job - Compute resources that are used in real-time.

  • Partition - Name of a collection of Nodes that can be requested following the resource definitions set by the Scheduler.

  • Job Array - Type of Slurm job where the same task is executed in many jobs with slight changes based on the index specified.

  • Job Script - Shell script that requests and executes commands on compute resources.

  • Queue - Schedule managed by the Scheduler utility, all jobs ‘sit’ in the queue as they become eligible to run based on job size and prioritization.

  • Scheduler - Referencing the ‘Slurm Scheduler’, the simple Linux utility for resource management.

  • Walltime - Timelimit specified for a job; how long should the job have access to these compute resources?

Software Terms

  • Module - A package that is preinstalled on the cluster and can be made available to the userspace by loading it with the command module load <module name> such as module load matlab

  • Package - individual piece of software; not necessarily a module.