Introduction of the U-M Research Computing Package and reduced rates will expand access to high-performance computing services across campus and Michigan Medicine.
This week, campus leaders shared two major research computing announcements:
- Effective July 1, rates for ARC computing and storage services will be reduced by an estimated 35-40 percent
- Beginning September 1, a new U-M Research Computing Package (UMRCP), provided by ITS, will be offered to all qualifying faculty, staff and students
This is exciting news that positively impacts our Michigan Medicine research community. UMRCP is modeled after the Michigan Medicine RCP that has been in place for the past several years. With this campus-level investment, the storage and compute base offerings in the Michigan Medicine RCP will be replaced by the UMRCP.
How this affects Michigan Medicine
- Michigan Medicine RCP users will have access to UMRCP starting September 1. Additional information will be shared regarding the transition process for Michigan Medicine RCP customers prior to September. Information will also be available at https://arc.umich.edu/UMRCP.
- Total computing credits will increase. Starting September 1, Michigan Medicine researchers will have access to 80,000 core hours each year as offered in the UMRCP. This is almost a 2X increase to what was previously offered in the Michigan Medicine RCP. Compute credits are allocated on the Great Lakes cluster or the Armis2 protected data cluster; they can be used for standard, larger memory, or GPU resources.
- Rate subsidy for compute will continue. For researchers whose compute needs exceed the base allocation provided by the UMRCP, rates for ARC computing services are reduced by an estimated 35-40 percent, effective July 1. In addition, Michigan Medicine will continue to provide minimally a 44% subsidy on the new compute rates to lower the costs even more. Once the new compute rates are finalized, we will update the Michigan Medicine commitment.
- Storage base allocations will not change. The base allocation of storage provided in the UMRCP (10 TB of replicated, high performance storage and 100 TB of archive storage) is exactly the same as what was previously offered through the Michigan Medicine RCP.
- Support will remain consistent. Continue to contact arcts-support@umich.edu for support or questions.
These investments demonstrate U-M’s commitment to advancing our research through competitive, accessible computing resources. For more details about the new UMRCP, check out the information at https://arc.umich.edu/UMRCP/. If you have any questions, contact HITS Academic Computing at arcts-support@umich.edu.