Queues

Note - SLURM uses the word partition, but to avoid confusion for people used to using other queueing systems, we use the word queue.

Before creating and submitting jobs, it’s useful to understand the concept of queues, what queues are available for use, and the differences between them.

Queues form part of the cluster functionality provided by the scheduler (SLURM), the software used to balance node utilisation across the ADA cluster.

A queue is a pre-defined collection of nodes of a specific type, generally tailored for running a specific type of job. So your first task before running a job is to decide which queue it should be run on.

Note

You need to specify the time for your job - this is different from hpc.uea.ac.uk.

If you don't you will be allocated the default job length of 24 hours.

The maximum job length is 7 days (168 hours). Jobs exceedig this will be killed automatically.

The queues on ADA are as follows:

Queue Name	Slots Available	Default Time	Maximum Time	RAM Per Core	Priority	Description
compute-16-64 (default queue)	2112	24 hours	7 days	4GB	30	standard compute node
compute-24-96	1584	24 hours	7 days	4GB	30	enhanced compute node
interactive	192	24 hours	7 days	32GB	30	interactive node
ib	672	24 hours	7 days	4GB	30	parallel ib mellanox
hmem-691	96	24 hours	7 days	32Gb	20	High Memory
hmem-754	96	24 hours	7 days	32Gb	20	High Memory
gpu	8 GPU (2 per node)	24 hours	7 days	16Gb per cpu 192GB per gpu	30	GPU

The ib, hmem and gpu queues will change their names as we update the queues.

video Partitions on ADA details the queue (partitions) and how to find out more about them.

Memory on the queues

The Ram per Core figure is the assumed amount available to your job if you don't specify a RAM limit. It is the total ram divied by the number of cores on the machine. The amount of RAM on the machine is the final figure on the queue name.

If your job used more than the assumed level, without asking for it, it may impact other users of the node, causing jobs to slow down as memory is swapped between the different processes.

You can specify more than that figure if you want to use more RAM - please see the memory section of this site.
If you think your job is going to need with 5Gb of total RAM available on a given queue, please move to a queue with more RAM available. If your job is likely to need more than 120Gb RAM then you will need to use the high memory queue.