2022 Call for Proposals to use NERSC Resources

NOTE: This is historical content. It may include references to programs, people, and research no longer active at Berkeley Lab. It may also link to web pages that no longer exist or refer to documents no longer available. It is provided as-is.

Overview and Schedule

The Office of Science (SC) of the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) solicits proposals for 2022 allocations of high performance computing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Proposals must support the mission of the DOE Office of Science, and can be submitted starting September 7, 2021.

All current projects (including Exploratory, Education, and Director's Reserve, but excluding ALCC) must be renewed for 2022 if you wish to continue using NERSC. New project requests should be submitted at this time as well (to start in 2022).

The deadline for submitting AY 2022 NERSC proposals (both renewed and new) is October 4, 2021, 11:59 PM Pacific Time October 8, 2021, 5:00 PM Pacific Time.

While NERSC accepts proposals at any time during the year, applicants are encouraged to submit proposals by this deadline if they wish to receive full consideration for Allocation Year 2022.

Award decisions for requests submitted before this deadline will be emailed to Principal Investigators and Project Managers the week of December 13, 2021.

2022 allocations will be for the period January 19, 2022, through January 17, 2023.

Submitting Your Request

Requests to use NERSC resources are submitted via the ERCAP (Energy Research Computing Allocations Process) Request Form. See Help for the ERCAP Allocations Request Form.

Most projects fall under the "Class" of "DOE Mission Science." Unless you know otherwise, you should select this class on the ERCAP form.

Questions?

If you need help with your AY 2022 allocation request, please submit a help request through https://help.nersc.gov or send email to allocations@nersc.gov.

We will be presenting an overview of the ERCAP form and process at the September 16 NUG meeting.

We will be holding ERCAP Office Hours to provide one-on-one assistance through Zoom sessions. The Office hours will be held on:

Thursday September 9
Thursday, September 30
Monday, October 4
Thursday, October 7 (PM only)
Friday, October 8

And will take place from 9-12 noon and 1-4 pm (Pacific time). You can get the Zoom access information here. (NOTE, you will be required to log in with your NERSC username, password, and MFA in order to view this information.)

Eligibility

NERSC supports research that reflects the mission of DOE's Office of Science (SC). All Principal Investigators funded by the Office of Science may apply for an allocation of NERSC resources. In addition, researchers who aren't directly funded by DOE SC but with projects that are relevant to its mission may also apply to use NERSC resources. If you are not funded by the DOE Office of Science you should explain how your research falls within the DOE mission. See Eligibility.

Available Resources

The following resources are available for 2022 allocation requests:

CPU compute time on Cori and Perlmutter CPU-only nodes. (Charging for use of Perlmutter CPU nodes will begin at a time TBA in 2022.)
GPU compute time on Perlmutter's GPU-accelerated nodes (Charging for use of Perlmutter GPU nodes will begin at a time TBA in 2022.)
Community File System (CFS) storage
HPSS Archival storage

Each of these resources are allocated separately.

Sizing Your Request

For Allocation Year 2022, you must enter requests for allocations of CPU-only compute time and GPU-accelerated compute time separately in the ERCAP form. Time allocated for CPU-only use cannot be used to run on Perlmutter's GPUs and vice-versa (the Cori GPU partition is not an allocatable resource).

Allocations of compute time for 2022 will be based on units of "node hours," which is different from the current unit of "NERSC Hours". You must size your request for 2022 appropriately in these new units. See "Cori & Perlmutter CPU Charging" for details.

When you submit your DOE Mission Science proposal, it will be evaluated by the Office of Science program you select in your proposal. Each of these programs has a pool of time to distribute and your allocation is drawn from these pools. To help you size your request, the table below lists the programs and the total size of their 2022 allocation pool.

Total node hours available at NERSC in Allocation Year 2022.

	AY2022 CPU Node Hours Available to Allocate	AY2022 GPU Node Hours Available to Allocate
Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)	710,000	100,000
Biological and Environmental Research (BER): Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division	3,040,000	420,000
Biological and Environmental Research (BER): Biological Systems Science Division	700,000	95,000
Basic Energy Sciences (BES) - Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences	4,630,000	640,000
Basic Energy Sciences (BES) - Materials Sciences and Engineering	4,000,000	550,000
Basic Energy Sciences (BES) - Scientific User Facilities	830,000	115,000
Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)	3,410,000	472,000
High Energy Physics (HEP)	4,110,000	568,000
Nuclear Physics (NP)	3,100,000	425,000
SBIR	120,000	15,000
Total	24,650,000	3,400,000

The new Perlmutter supercomputer is expected to begin charging at some date TBA in 2022. Details will be sent to users at a later date. However, you should request the number of hours you would expect to use on Perlmutter for the whole year and you will be required to provide justification regarding your code's readiness for running on GPUs. Please review our guidelines for determining your code's GPU readiness here.

Submissions by New NERSC Users

New PIs (who do not have a NERSC login name) must fill out the New PI Account request form. Once this is done the Account Support group will notify the new PI of their login name and password to be used to access the ERCAP system. See Applying for your First NERSC Allocation.

Accessing the ERCAP Allocation Request Form

The ERCAP request form is accessed by current NERSC users at https://ercap.nersc.gov. You log in using your NERSC login name and password. If you have forgotten your NERSC password, you can get a new password by following the Forgot password link on the Iris login page.

You will also be required to sign in using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). If you have not already set up MFA for your account, you can find our online documentation here: Multi-Factor Authentication

After you have logged into ERCAP , and if you do not end up on the ERCAP Requests homepage, find the ERCAP Requests section of the left-hand navigation menu and select the Manage My Requests link. If you want to keep your current project in 2022, make sure that you click on the green Request a Project Renewal for 2022 button rather than start a request for a new project.

See ERCAP Allocation Request Form.

Designating Authorized Preparers to fill out the Request Form

Principal Investigators can designate one or more "Authorized Preparers" who can help fill in the ERCAP request form for the PI (or in conjunction with the PI). See Apply for Your First Allocation.