Please read the Acceptable Use Policy for IT Facilities and Services and related IT Acceptable Use Policy for IT under IT Facilities and Services. Users have responsibility to have backup their own data.
Acceptable Use Policy for UBDA Platform
- Users are requested to acknowledge the use of the computing resources provided by the University Research Facility in Big Data Analytics (UBDA) in research papers, journals or other publications. Such acknowledgement helps us in convincing RAMC of the value of these resources to Campus and helps us to acquire funding for continued maintenance and/or procurement of new resources. We would also appreciate it if you could inform us about your acknowledgement. Example workings like "We acknowledge the University Research Facility in Big Data Analytics (UBDA) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for providing computing resources that have contributed to the research results reported within this paper."
- The computing resources of the University Research Facility in Big Data Analytics (UBDA) are accessed by users who have registered and accepted the given policies. Users are responsible for taking care of and protecting their own UBDA account from unauthorized access. Sharing a user account with others or using someone else's UBDA account without prior approval is prohibited.
- The allocation and assignment of computing resources to users can vary based on users’ requirement, need and budget. Any unauthorized or malicious use of accounts and computing resources will be suspended/ terminated.
- The HPC login node is provided for users to access the HPC platform by creating and managing their required jobs, editing the source code, compilation and small testing. The user's jobs cannot be run on the login node but need to be submitted to the computing nodes using the provided resource management system. All production workout programs run on the login node will be terminated without notice. Since the login node is a shared environment, when compiling/building code with GNC-like "make" command, set the number of CPU cores to no more than 15 (e.g. "make -j 12"), or simple submit an interactive job which will redirect your SHELL to one of the available compute node, where you can compile/build/execute your code and commands without compute restriction and will not be kicked-out as if in the login node. You must have a PBS script to request hardware resources for heavy computations.
- The HPC computing nodes are served for users to execute their computation and should be accessed and used via the resource management system. Direct access to any bare metal computing nodes by users as root account is not permitted. For some services like GPU-enabled Virtual Machine (GVM), UBDA grants the users with "sudo" right, a complete access on their VMs, its poses additional security implications for UBDA in our sub-network, if we find that you are a potential attacker or disrupts the work of other users, your UBDA account will be permanently deleted.
- The use of the UBDA should be restricted to learning, research, development and work-out production purposes only. It must not be used in relation to any commercial profiting, illegal or any other unauthorized activities. If you find any illicit/business trade or abnormal situation, please do not hesitate to contact us.
- Users shall not purposely engage in activities of breaching system security or administrative measures. Users are requested to report incidents of possible misuse, violation of the given policies, and system security problems.
- Users are responsible for using the computing resources (including GPU cards) in an efficient, effective, ethical and lawful manner. Users shall not download, install or execute any programs or utilities that will introduce unnecessary or high loading, high data traffic or cause any security threats to the computing resources and network switches.
- Users shall take the responsibilities and related license for the installation of software on their allocated computing resources. No software will be installed on UBDA without prior proof of license eligibility.
- Users shall not attempt to access any data or programs contained in UBDA for which they do not have authorization or written consent of the owner of the data or program.
- Users shall not make any copies of the application and system configuration files for unauthorized use or share with other unauthorized people.
- The scheduled maintenance will be announced to users in advance, however, the UBDA services may require to be shutting-down or unstable without prior notice in case of an emergency or unavoidable maintenance.
- UBDA is a PAID service, and users shall seek approval from their academic supervisor to support the use of the UBDA services before registering if applicable. User's monthly usage summary will be sent to their academic supervisor to review/reference. The Research and Innovation Office (RIO) may send invoice(s) to the corresponding PI/PI's delegate if their subordinate/researchers (UBDA users) accumulate total services usage exceeds the free quota amount, which is normally HKD. 5000 annually per academic staff. The PIs has to pay for the services free.
