There are several steps to becoming an Amarel owner, which include working with our Research and Education Facilitator (REF) team for pre-and post-purchase configuration and access details, as well as working with the Business Operations team for the contract (Service Level Agreement or SLA) and financial transactions.

Begin by reaching out to help@oarc.rutgers.edu (the REF team) who will work with you to determine the amount of nodes and storage you need to perform your research and wish to purchase, put you in touch with the Business team, and direct you to fill out the general access form if you or your lab members/students are not open access users yet. This process will give you the ability to specify amount, and in some cases, configuration of desired compute and storage, list appropriate contacts in your lab or department, and open up a line of communication with appropriate OARC team members in order to successfully become an owner and utilize your equipment most efficiently.

In the “condo model”, Amarel owners have the benefit of prioritization. So while nodes not in use, or owned by OARC (university-subsidized), are available for the rest of the research community on a first-come, first-served basis, owners can log on and begin a job at any time, which would preempt a General User. Owners cannot be preempted; their equipment is always available to them, except in times of maintenance. (Further specifics of prioritization are available here).

Yes, but there is the chance that a job being run by a non-owner (referred to as a General or Open Access User) may be preempted if they are on an owned node and the owner begins to run their own job.

Owners provide the OARC Business Team with appropriate account strings during the purchasing process communications (see FAQ above, How do I become an Amarel owner?). The OARC Business Team will perform a journal entry for your equipment when it is ready to be provisioned to you.

Check the Amarel Status page for this information.

Rutgers University has purchased specialized computing, networking, and storage resources using university budgetary resources, state appropriations, endowment funds, grants, or contracts, and has designated OARC as the office responsible for managing that equipment. By gaining access to and using resources associated with OARC, you acknowledge and agree to comply with the OARC conditions of use, which can be found here.

Beginning with Clark, the cost per TB of owned storage (not including the 1TB free with every newly purchased node) will be increasing from the current cost to $122.88/TB/year ($0.12/GB/year). You may purchase Amarel storage for one through four-year terms and the cost will remain the same regardless of the duration chosen.

Amarel storage can be purchased in 1-year or 4-year terms. In addition, we are considering a policy, still under review, to allow Amarel storage to be purchased in 2- or 3-year terms and to allow proration of cost, in both cases to allow for alignment with node ownership terms and grant budget cycles. Node ownership will continue to be in 4-year terms only, as pursuant to the hardware warranties and useful life of the equipment.

Email help@oarc.rutgers.edu to reach the OARC Research and Education Facilitator team (REFs). They can generally answer questions about Amarel’s capabilities related to your specific science needs, and can loop in the Tech Team (systems administrators) or Business Team as needed.