Accessing the IDEA Cluster (Mar 2022)

IDEA Cluster Image
  • The Rensselaer IDEA Compute Cluster is a high performance computing environment with five Intel Xeon and two AMD compute servers in various configurations ranging from 24-40 cores (48-80), 256GB-1TB RAM, and up to four GPUs per machine (Tesla K40m or Titan RTX). The IDEA Cluster includes two dedicated storage servers totaling more than 40TB of usable space.
    • RCS credentials and VPN are required
    • Email John Erickson for access privileges: erickj4@rpi.edu
  • Student Access:
    • Students of IDEA-sponsored courses (e.g. MATP-4400, MATP-4900) are automatically added for the term of the course
    • The Cluster provides access to: RStudio, Jupyter, Python, MATLAB, GPUs (on Nodes 2 and 5); lots of storage and computes
    • Access via the RPI physical network or VPN required
    • Priority is given to IDEA researchers and students in IDEA-sponsored courses (e.g. MATP-4910, MATP-4400)
  • Web links to RStudio and Jupyter GUIs:
  • Shared Data on the Cluster:
    • All idea_users have access to shared storage via /data ("data" in your home directories)
    • Permissions are best managed via the Linux terminal (see above)
  • Shell access to individual nodes: You must access "landing pad" first, then a specific compute node:
    • ssh your_rcs@lp01.idea.rpi.edu, then ssh idea-node-XX
    • For example:
      1. ssh erickj4@lp01.idea.rpi.edu
      2. Then, ssh idea-node-02 (to access "Node 02," a GPU node)

Help for R users new to Linux

Help for IDEA Cluster Python Users

Help for General IDEA Cluster Issues

Contact John Erickson for details! erickj4@rpi.edu