The price for academic access to HPC resources is calculated based on the full cost of ownership to operate the facility. In particular it includes:
- the cost of the HPC hardware and the cost of the common storage system
- the cost of the infrastructure needed to host the HPC facility at SDU, such as: the server rooms, the cooling system, the required electrical components to connect to the power grid (e.g. transformers), etc;
- the cost of the electricity for the whole HPC facility (HPC hardware, storage system, cooling system).
The costs for IT-service support are not included in the estimate. Currently, this cost is very low being 1.5 FTE.
The final price for academic users is calculated to be:
- Slim nodes: 1,50 DKK / node-hour (~ 0,062 DKK / CPU core-hour)
- Fat nodes: 1,80 DKK / node-hour (~0,075 DKK / CPU core-hour)
- GPU nodes: 2,10 DKK / node-hour (~0,088 DKK / CPU core-hour)
The rates above are per node per hour in DKK excluding VAT. All our nodes have 24 CPU cores, i.e., the rates per CPU core, are obtained by dividing node-hours prices by 24. The prices are estimated based on the assumption of an average utilization of 80% of the machine and a life span of the HPC hardware of 4 years. The prices take into account the co-financing from DeiC, which reduces the overall price for all users by about 35%.
Note that the pricing model at the national HPC facility at SDU is such that the costs for the storage are included in the cost of node-hours, i.e. users are not required to pay separately for the use of the storage system.
Individual prices are agreed with non-academic users, based on their needs and level of support which they require.
Please write to escience@sdu.dk for a customized quotation.