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Allocation transfer and conversion policy and procedures

Terms

  • An investor is a person who purchases resource allocation(s) on UFIT Research Computing systems. The resulting allocations can be assigned to any group or team on an appropriate UFIT-RC system, including those sponsored by persons other than the investor.
  • A sponsor is a person who manages and is responsible for a research group or team on a UFIT Research Computing system (https://docs.rc.ufl.edu/access/eligibility/ ).
  • A user is a person who has a UFIT Research Computing system account in a sponsored group.
  • An investment is a purchase of resources that can subsequently be allocated to one or more sponsored groups.
  • An allocation is a defined amount of resources on a specific UFIT Research Computing system that can be used to perform computational research.
    • A computational allocation can represent units that map to CPU cores and RAM (A Normalized Compute Unit, or NCU) or GPUs.
    • A storage allocation results in a storage quota on the corresponding filesystem.
    • An auxiliary service allocation results in the provisioning of service-specific resources and environments.
    • A consulting allocation results in a number of prepaid consulting hours by UFIT-RC staff.

Policy

This policy governs the reallocation of resources allocated on UFIT Research Computing systems when a faculty member with active investments allocated on UFIT-RC systems (Investor) leaves the institution or organization, chooses to stop using UFIT-RC systems, or becomes ineligible or unable to use UFIT-RC systems. The main guiding principle is to minimize any potential harm such as data loss or the inability of eligible users to continue their work. UFIT Research Computing has no records of the funding sources used to invest into UFIT-RC resources, so the determination of the disposition of the resources is left to the discretion of the departing faculty’s department or institution.

Resource allocation conversion and transfer policy:

  1. An active investor can reallocate the resources they paid for to another group or groups at any time during the allocations. They can also request conversion of allocated resources between resource allocation types to respond to their project needs. If there is a question about the appropriateness of the change, the determination is left to the investor and the relevant department. Resource type conversions must be reviewed and approved by the UFIT-RC staff.
  2. If a UF investor moves to another university in Florida, they retain eligibility to invest in UFIT-RC resources at UF rates and can keep their existing allocations in their new position. If they choose to stop using the UFIT-RC system(s), their allocations are transferred in accordance with the policy for a move outside the state.
  3. If a UF investor moves outside Florida, they are no longer eligible to invest in UFIT-RC resources at UF rates, and their allocation is transferred to their former UF department unless it has already been transferred to another active UFIT-RC sponsor without contest from the original investor’s department. This situation also applies to cases when the sponsor is no longer able to communicate with UFIT-RC.
    • Departmental leadership can request that the remaining allocations be transferred to another sponsor. Alternatively, the department can choose to transfer the computational allocations to a shared departmental umbrella group managed by the department chair, institute director, or their delegate.
    • Remaining active users in the departing sponsor’s allocation group left behind at UF are expected to join the new allocation group and retain access to the allocations to finish their computational research.
    • The former investor may continue to use the allocations as a collaborator to the new UF sponsor, at the discretion of the new sponsor.
    • If the collaborations end, the department can dispose of the allocations at its discretion.
  4. If a sponsor from a Florida institution leaves their institution and the State of Florida, or chooses to stop using UFIT-RC resources, the institutional liaison is contacted to initiate a review of the allocation and determine a target group for the allocation transfer, similar to 3a above.
  5. If a non-UF full-rate investor chooses to stop using UFIT-RC resources, they can reallocate the active resource allocations to any other sponsored group on HiPerGator or leave them inactive until expiration.

Procedures

The procedure for transferring allocations is initiated by opening an RCSupport ticket to request the change; UFIT RC staff will assist with navigating the various options. As we develop the self-service capabilities for investors and sponsors, some change types will be available via web interfaces.