Tempest has two tiers of access: a free-access tier, and a buy-in tier

Free Access Tier

Each PI or class at MSU is eligible for priority access to 256 CPUs, 1024GB of memory, and 2 GPUs (of which up to 1 can be an A100 GPU) for MSU research or instruction. In addition to this limited priority acces, all MSU researchers also recieve fairshare access to a portion of Tempest and premtible access to any idle resoruces. Availability of free tier resources is subject to change.

Buy-In Tier

Those who buy-in to Tempest receive resource allocations in addition to the free tier allocation. Buy-in supports the maintenance of the cluster. Each buy-in group receives absolute priority access to a resource allocation commensurate to their level of contribution in addition to the free access tier. Contributors also have the ability to "burst" priority workloads to 200% of their allocation (up to a $30,000 value in additional resources). Additionally, all Tempest users are able to run unlimited "unsafe" and "legacy" jobs on any resources not being used for priority jobs. 

Resource

$5000

$10000

$15000

$20000

$25000

$30000

CPUS

85

170

255

340

425

510

A40 GPU

1

2

3

4

5

6

Memory

340 Gb

680 Gb

1020 Gb

1360 Gb

1700 Gb

2040 Gb

 

Contributors also have the option to optimize their buy-in for either A40 or A100 GPUs. Those including tempest funding in grant proposals should list it as a line item under contracted services in the grant budget.

Over $30,000 resource allocation rates differ.

 To learn more about buying-in to Tempest, email tempest-support@montana.edu.