Introduction to XSEDE
What is XSEDE?
The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded collection of supercomputers and high-end visualization and data analysis resources. XSEDE resources are an order of magnitude more powerful than most University’s local super computer.
For more information about XSEDE this XSEDE Pamphlet provides an excellent overview.
Who is Eligible.
Researchers or educators at a U.S.-based institution, including federal research labs or commercial organizations are eligible to apply to be a PI for an allocation of compute time and storage. This includes postdoctoral researchers. PIs can give students accounts to use the allocation.
How do I get an account?
There is a Create an Account button on the XSEDE User Portal (XUP) or you can go directly to this page through this link: Create an Account
How do I get an Allocation?
Once you have created your account, log in and go to the allocations tab and click on the Submit/review Request sub-tab.
If this is your first time using XSEDE, I would recommend a Startup Allocation request. The requests are short and have a quick turn around time to get you started with a small but decent allocation to get started. Startup Allocations are very useful to get performance and coding information that will be needed in a full research allocatoin request.
Examples
Research Allocation
Once you are more familiar with XSEDE through your Startup allocation and have some performance and coding metrics you can apply for a Research Allocation to meet your computing needs. This is also done in the XUP allocations tab/ Submit/review Request sub-tab. More information on the requirements for the allocation request including formatting and required documentation can be found in their Research Allocation Documentation
Getting started on Bridges
If you decide to use bridges resources then you will need to create a separate login and password. See the following documentation for more information