Policy

Account Eligibility

Beocat resources are available to faculty and staff at K-State, Kansas higher educational institutions (subject to the KanShare MOU), and to US academic researchers that engage in collaborative research and development activities K-State researchers. Additional supporting documentation may be required prior to accessing Beocat's resources.

Accounts are subject to annual renewal. Upon leaving K-State your account will be automatically de-activated, but you may apply for re-activation using the standard Beocat account request form.

K-State Information Technology Usage Policy

As Beocat is a K-State resource, the following usage policy also applies: http://www.k-state.edu/policies/ppm/3420.html

Please pay close attention to .030, as these are egregious violations.

Classified, PII/HIPAA, CUI, and/or export controlled data

Beocat is not equipped to store and/or compute on Classified, CUI, PII, or HIPAA. For this type of data we suggest the K-State Research Information Security Enclave (RISE). Export controlled data and computation may occur on Beocat with the concurrence of the appropriate KSU personnel, generally a collaboration between the researchers, Beocat staff, the Compliance Office and CISO to determine appropriate safeguards are in place prior to the start of Beocat usage.

Access

Access to Beocat is currently prohibited from certain sensitive countries/regions, including countries designated as State Sponsors of Terrorism by the US government, and the People's Republic of China. Exceptions may be possible with the agreement in writing of the appropriate K-State officials, including but not limited to the Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Information Security Officer.

Maintenance

Beocat reserves the right to a 24 hour maintenance period every other week. However, this maintenance is not always necessary. Maintenance intentions and reservations will always be announced on the mailing list 2 weeks before an actual maintenance period is in effect.

Head node computational tasks

The head node serves as a shell server and development environment for Beocat users. We wish to keep this machine running responsively to make work easier. We do not have a problem with running simple post-processing work on the head node directly. But, if your process seems too computation or memory intensive, it may have its priority severely reduced or may be killed completely. If in doubt, ask.

Due to abuses of the head node, there are now strict limits in place. If a process uses more than 4GB of RSS memory or 6GB of virtual memory, it will get killed automatically. RSS Memory is limited to 12GB across all users. CPU Usage is allocated with a fair-share algorithm, all users have equivalent access to CPU time.

Backups

For those of you using our hosted virtual machines, no backups of said machines or data are made.

At this point in time, due to the size of our main storage, we are unable to provide backups of any data.

Home Directory Quota

Each home directory has a quota of 1TB. If you use more that 1TB in your home directory, we will notify you and provide a window for resolving the issue. If no action is underwent, we will move data elsewhere.

Bulk Usage

We have no quota for usage within our /bulk filesystem, but data stored here must be paid for at a rate of $45/TB/year, billed monthly.

Account deactivation

If your account meets any of the following criteria:

• inactive for 1 year
• invalid e-mail address on file
• unsubscribed from our mailing list
• inactive eID
• lack of a K-State sponsor if you are not a K-State student or employee
  • upon the transition from K-State student or employee to not being a K-State student or employee your account will be automatically deactivated. If you still have need of your account you will need to reapply.
  • unfortunately, it would seem this gets triggered a week or two before the new semester if the student hasn't enrolled for the new semester yet.
• failed to follow up on the annual renewal process

we will mark the account for archival, and remove your ability to login. If you should need the account again, please fill out our account request form.

Administrative access to home, bulk and fastscratch directories

Beocat support staff have the need, from time to time, to access information contained within the directories of other users, for support purposes. To that end, there is an access control list that gives them read access to user home, bulk, and fastscratch directories.

Directory Permissions

In order for Beocat to be in alignment with State of Kansas regulations and industry norms, all users must have their /homes /bulk /scratch and /fastscratch directories locked down from other users, but can still share files and directories within their group or with individual users using group and individual ACLs (Access Control Lists). Beocat staff will be exempted from this policy as we need to work freely with all users and will manage our subdirectories to minimize access.

Acknowledging Use of Beocat Resources and/or Personnel in Publications

Click here for a list of publications that used Beocat resources and/or personnel.

1. A publication that is based in whole or in part on computations performed using Beocat systems, including but not limited to hardware, storage, networking and/or software, should incorporate the following text into the Acknowledgements section of the publication:
   • [Some of] The computing for this project was performed on the Beocat Research Cluster at Kansas State University, which is funded in part by NSF grants CNS-1006860, EPS-1006860, EPS-0919443, ACI-1440548, CHE-1726332, and NIH P20GM113109.
2. If any Beocat staff member(s) assisted with the work in any way, then for each Beocat staff member that was involved in the work:
   1. If the publication includes a substantial amount of text about the work that the Beocat staff member contributed to, and if the Beocat staff member did a substantial amount of development or optimization of software, and/or they contributed significantly to the writing of the publication, then that staff member should be included as a co-author on that publication, with author order to be negotiated among the authors.

      NOTE

      This requirement can be waived for tenure track (but not yet tenured) faculty if the faculty member has a compelling tenure-related interest in, for example, producing single-author publications.

   2. If the conditions above don't apply, then the Beocat staff member should be acknowledged by name and job title in the Acknowledgements section of the paper.

      For example

      Beocat Director Daniel Andresen and Beocat Systems Administrator Nathan Wells provided valuable technical expertise.

3. A citation for your publication should be added to our papers and grants page.

IRB Statement

INFORMATION

If you are a Beocat user, whenever you submit a job, delete a job, or otherwise interact with the scheduler, automatic information about this is logged and will be used in this study. This will include information about the job including requested resources (memory, processors, duration, modules, etc.). We may send you a followup request for more information if, for example, you delete a job. Your participation is optional.

RISKS

There are no anticipated risks with participation in this study other than the time responding to a followup information request.

BENEFITS

Your participation in our studies will help us learn how to optimize the performance of Beocat and other HPC resources, which will help our users and our overall science and education efforts.

CONFIDENTIALITY

All information gathered in this study will be kept confidential. All information about your jobs will not use real names or eIDs, and any publications will aggregate overall information.

CONTACT

If you have any questions at any time about the study or procedures, please contact Dr. Daniel Andresen at Kansas State University, Department of Computer Science: Phone: (785) 532-7914 or Email: dan@ksu.edu. If you feel you have not been treated according to the description in this page, or your rights as a participant in research have been violated during the course of this study, you may contact the office for the Kansas State University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects, 203 Fairchild Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506. (785) 532-3224.

PARTICIPATION

Your participation in this study is strictly voluntary; you may refuse to participate in any followup surveys or withdraw your information from the study without penalty. If you decide to participate, you may withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. To remove your data from use in the study, contact Dr. Daniel Andresen as described above.