Research Computing

It is our pleasure to welcome you to Unity, a high performance computing cluster located at the MGHPCC (Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center) and managed by the UMass Amherst Research Computing team.

Principle Investigator & Faculty Accounts (March 17, 2023)

  • As of March 17, 2023, Principle Investigators and faculty can request Unity cluster Principle Investigator accounts in the Unity portal
  • On the left side bar, select Login/Request Account and log in with your UMass Lowell credentials.
  • Once logged in, under Account Settings, click the Request PI Account button.
  • The Unity team will review your request and approve your Principle Investigator account.

Student & Postdoc Accounts (March 24, 2023)

  • As of March 24, 2023, you will be able to add students and postdocs to your Principle Investigator group.
  • Students request access to your Principle Investigator group by logging into the Unity portal, navigating to My PIs and clicking the (+) button to search for your group.
  • Students and postdocs can’t access Unity without an associated Principle Investigator, so please ensure your Principle Investigator account is created and approved before onboarding your students.

Unity Onboarding Live Zoom Sessions

To ensure a smooth transition from the Shared Cluster to Unity, we held online workshops on accessing Unity, data transfer and storage, and running jobs, respectively. These workshops can be accessed with the associated links below.

The links below will take you to the recorded sessions and the slides, and you can find more information on the Unity Documentation page.

Please send questions to: researchcomputing@uml.edu

  1. Unity Onboarding Workshop Part 1: Access and Data Storage
    Friday, March 31, 2023, 2-3 p.m. (time for questions following)
    We will provide an overview of Unity in comparison to the Shared cluster, explain the account request process for PIs/faculty and students/postdocs, and discuss storage on Unity and data transfer options.

    Session 1 Recording
    Presentation Slides


  2. Unity Onboarding Workshop Part 2: Running Jobs
    Friday, April 14, 2023, 2-3 p.m. (time for questions following)
    We will discuss the differences between the Shared Cluster’s LSF scheduler and Unity’s Slurm scheduler, introduce Unity’s partition layout, show example Slurm jobs, and demonstrate Unity’s Open OnDemand portal.

    Session 2 Recording
    Presentation Slides

Migrating Data to Unity (deadline: May 15, 2023)

  • All data must be migrated to Unity by May 15, 2023, so please plan accordingly to avoid data loss.
  • Principle Investigators will temporarily receive sufficient storage in the /project directory to move as much data from the shared cluster as desired. However, storage quotas will be enforced starting January 2024.
  • Users may purchase additional storage at that time at a rate of $6.20 per TB per Month.

Shared Cluster Shutdown (read-only: May 1, 2023, final shutdown: June 1, 2023)

  • The cluster will become read-only ahead of the shutdown on May 1, 2023. While you will be able to continue transferring data, you will no longer be able to run jobs or create new files.
  • The Shared Cluster will be turned off permanently on June 1, 2023.

We are very excited about what the future of high-performance computing holds for the UMass Lowell community!

If you have any questions, please direct them to: researchcomputing@uml.edu.

For the most up to date information, see our transition documentation on the Unity Documentation page.