Please check the Storage Service Center page for the dataflow to ColdFront

ColdFront is an open-source resource allocation management system designed to provide a central portal for administration, usage reporting, and allocation management of HPC resources.  FASRC adapted the open-source software to manage allocations on the FASRC cluster.  The platform enables the viewing and management of both lab groups (Projects) and their storage or cluster allocations (Allocations).

Accessing Coldfront

To access Coldfront, connect to the @fasrc VPN and log in using FASRC credentials.

https://coldfront.rc.fas.harvard.edu/

After logging in, you will see your home page, which has sections for your projects, your allocations, and any pending requests or change requests for your allocations. Click the project link or Allocation active button to view details about your projects/allocation.

Project Pages:

A Project page allows all project members to:

• view the project’s allocations
• view the project’s users
• adjust their project notification settings.

Additionally, from the project page, project managers and PIs can:

• request new storage allocations
• request changes to existing storage allocations
• add users to the project
• remove or request to remove users from the project
• edit the roles of project users (i.e., assign or remove Manager status)
• send an email to project users that have elected to receive notifications.

The project page’s allocation section allows you to view storage and cluster allocations for your lab. Managers can also click the “Request New Storage Allocation” button on this table’s header to… yes, that’s right, submit a request for a new storage allocation.

The project page’s users table lists all the users in the lab group. The users table contains options for PIs and managers to add users to the project, remove or request to remove users from the project, edit the roles of project users (i.e., assign or remove Manager status), or send an email to project users that have elected to receive notifications.

Allocations:

The Allocation Page provides a comprehensive view of details about the allocation, presenting key information such as the total allocation size, overall usage, and the estimated monthly cost. This page also features a table that illustrates usage per user, with data sourced and updated daily from our data management system, Starfish.

Making an Allocation Request:

PIs and users with project manager status can make a new allocation request or request changes to the current allocation.

To request a new allocation:

1. Go to the page of the project the new allocation is for and click the Request New Storage Allocation button.
2. Fill out and submit the allocation request form.
3. You will be notified via email when your new allocation is ready to use.

Allocations can be requested on storage tiers 0-3. To explore and understand the specifics of each storage tier, please refer to our detailed documentation on storage tiers here.

Making an Allocation Change Request:

PIs and project managers can request to change the size of an allocation associated with their project. Follow these steps to initiate the process:

1. Navigate to the allocation page corresponding to the allocation you wish to modify.
2. Click the “Request Change” button at the top of the “Allocation Information” table.
3. In the resulting form, shown below, enter the desired size of the allocation and the justification for those changes and click submit.
4. You will be notified via email when the allocation is updated and ready to use.

Please review https://www.rc.fas.harvard.edu/services/data-storage/#Offerings_Tiers_of_Service for the storage features and updates. If you have any questions. please feel free to reach us here: rchelp@rc.fas.harvard.edu