This page was translated by an AI (LLM) with a cursory human check and is awaiting full review.
The DARI website has evolved since this documentation was written, and some steps or screenshots may be outdated.
Creating a Regular Access (RA) File
This documentation describes the creation of a Regular Access (RA) file for AI or HPC communities.
If your total resource request across the three national centres is below the thresholds (500,000 CPU hours and 50,000 normalised GPU hours), you will be redirected to a Dynamic Access (DA). If the request exceeds these thresholds, you will be redirected to a Regular Access (RA).
For more details on access types, click here.
Creating the File
This process is done from your personal space on the eDARI portal.
You must first have opened a personal account on the eDARI website.
When you are on the homepage of the eDARI portal:
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You must first log in via the link "Log in or create an eDARI account" (at the top right of the page):
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This opens a new page where you choose the type of connection desired ("Log in with an eDARI account" or "Log in via the Education-Research Federation").
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Once logged in to the eDARI portal, you access the homepage of your personal space:
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Then click on the link "Create or renew a file" in the green LIST OF GENERAL POSSIBLE ACTIONS box.
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Then, on the page you just opened, click on the blue button "Create a new file":
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After reading and validating the page on the management of your personal data, click on the blue button "Send and proceed" to reach the first file entry page.
Entering the File
Project (page 1)
All fields in the titles followed by a red asterisk are mandatory. Make sure to describe your project well in the "Scientific description of the project" section to facilitate the review, especially if your hour request is significant.
Be careful not to choose the wrong thematic committee! This choice cannot be modified once all the information on this page has been saved.
If you process sensitive data (audio, video, health data, etc.), whether in the field of AI or HPC, please tick the "Yes" box in the "Will your project process personal data" box. In this case, after clicking on the blue "Next" button, you will be redirected to a specific page where you will declare the data controller (this can be you or a designated person in your laboratory or research team). You will have the optional possibility to fill in a questionnaire on the planned processing of the data. We invite you to do so in order to speed up the investigation we will conduct with you.
The "Upload an image" link is optional. It allows GENCI to associate an image with your file when publishing the list of projects benefiting from resources on national facilities.
Note that the (optional) information relating to the technical contact is not automatically taken up at IDRIS. To make this request to IDRIS, please use the Account Management Form (part "Addition or removal of a deputy on an existing project") but only after acceptance of your file and after acceptance of your computing account associated with this project.
Resources (page 2)
After filling in the requested information for your project, the second page will allow you to enter the necessary resources:
You can request hours in the three computing centres but in this documentation we will focus on the hours requested at IDRIS.
Whether for the AI community or the HPC community, you can request both CPU hours and GPU hours. Our different partitions (CPU, V100, A100 and H100) are detailed in this documentation page.
On the right, you have a column "Global storage space (in TB)" in which you must enter your storage needs for the entire duration of the project. This information is mandatory.
The rest of the page allows you to provide information on the amount of data produced, whether this data needs to remain stored at IDRIS and your software needs.
If you answer "Yes" to the question "Software needed?", you will be redirected to a specific page that dynamically lists the software available on the partitions you have requested. For example on Jean Zay CSL (CPU) and Jean ZAY A100 (GPU):
Research Structure (page 3)
The interface for declaring the research structure is based on the National Directory of Research Structures (RNSR) which references thousands of public and private research structures in France. Enter the first letters of your laboratory, organisation or research structure in the "Search" field and a list of matches will be proposed. Click on the correct result to display a summary page of information about your research structure. You can modify, if necessary, the postal and telephone contact details. If your structure director is found, they will also appear at the bottom of the page but without the possibility of modification.
If your structure is absent from the file or if you are part of a company, use the blue button "I cannot find my research structure" at the bottom of the page:
Laboratory Resources (page 4)
On this page of optional information, you can indicate information about the researchers, PhD students or collaborators involved in the project. You can also provide information on the computing experience of the team that will work on the project and the need for training if necessary:
By clicking on the box "You would like one or more additional training sessions.", you will dynamically obtain a supplement to indicate the training session(s) that your team would like to attend:
If this box is checked, you must necessarily check one or more boxes present on the entry form before clicking on the blue "Next" button.
Project Support (page 5)
You must enter information if your project benefits from financial support. Some answers are mandatory (presence of the red asterisk), others bring additional entry fields to the screen.
IT Precisions (page 6)
This entry page allows you to indicate all useful information about the calculation code(s) you will use, whether they have already run on supercomputers, their types, the number of CPU and/or GPU processors used, etc. Some answers are mandatory, others optional.
Do not hesitate to provide all the information at your disposal, this will allow the finest and fairest possible IT evaluation for large hour requests.
Supplement (page 7)
In this tab you will indicate:
- the number of hours of CPU and/or GPU that you think you will use over the allocation year;
- if you have the possibility to migrate your applications and environments to one (or more) supercomputer(s) of another centre in case of very high demands on the chosen computer;
- how you plan to use the allocated computing hours (continuously over the year, periodically, etc.).
Then click on the blue button "Finish" to return to the homepage of your personal space which will have changed dynamically.
Note that at this stage of the procedure, your file is not yet validated. Validation is mandatory for the request to be considered.
Final Validation
When your request is complete, you are redirected to the homepage of your personal space, where new information about your Regular Access file appears:
To definitively validate your allocation request, click on the temporary file number TMPXXXXX in the orange LIST OF REQUIRED ACTIONS box. This will open the following action menu:
The title in the purple bar is "ALLOCATION A12" because the hour request was above the Dynamic Access threshold (thus concerning a Regular Access) and made during the Regular Access A12 campaign (for this example).
You can view, modify (except the thematic committee), delete the file. You can leave a comment on a software (you want a particular version or a version compiled with modifications made in your laboratory), transfer the file to another manager. You also have an indication of the period during which the computing hours will be usable.
Unlike a Dynamic Access file, you must provide additional documents using the links provided for this purpose:
- "Upload the project presentation document(s)"
- "Upload the PDFs of publications (general or associated with previous DARI allocations)"
Without uploading these documents you will not be able to validate your file!
To upload the publication(s) related to your project or your research team, you have a very detailed specific page that will open when you click on the link:
Once these documents are uploaded, if you do not have any other information or corrections to make, click on the blue button "Validate the file". This will dynamically display the following information at the top of your personal space on the eDARI portal:
You will then find the final number of your file in the second light green box.
Attention:
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The first light green box will only appear if your structure director is part of the Education-Research Identity Federation (FER). Your director will then receive an email containing a link on which they must click to authenticate (which dispenses with depositing a manual signature) and finalise the procedure. Without this validation, your file WILL NOT BE REVIEWED.
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Otherwise, if your director and/or you are not part of the identity federation, only the last light green box indicating the dynamic access file number will appear.
In this case, you will see in the orange LIST OF REQUIRED ACTIONS box the mention "For your resource request to be considered, you must upload the signed endorsement on the site for the file below:" and on the next line the clickable file number with, in brackets, the precision "Dynamic Access" or "Allocation A..." (regular access):
In this example you would need to click on the second file number
By clicking on this number, a page will dynamically appear in a blue box at the bottom of your personal space with a summary of the status of your file indicating the date on which you validated the file and that the endorsement has not been validated by IDRIS:
Then click on the link "Endorsement Management" then on the link "Download the endorsement in PDF format" which you will print, sign manually and possibly have signed manually by your structure director if this is indicated in the endorsement. Then, scan the signed endorsement to have a digital version in PDF format.
Upload the endorsement in PDF format using the dialogue window with the "Browse" button. Without uploading this signed endorsement, your file WILL NOT BE REVIEWED by the IDRIS management. Once the endorsement is uploaded you will then have the following information:
And higher up in your personal space, the mention that you have no further action to take on your side:
If you click on your file number at the bottom of your personal space:
You will have confirmation that the endorsement is indeed uploaded for your computing hour request.
IDRIS will then verify that the signatures are indeed present and if so will accept this endorsement. Your file will be reviewed by one or more experts from your thematic committee.
You can submit several Regular Access files for different projects.
The duration of a project is one year. At the end of this period, you can renew your RA file. Depending on the cumulative volume of hours requested across the three centres upon renewal, you may remain in RA (similar procedure to the creation of the RA on eDARI) or switch to DA by following the detailed procedure on our website.
FAQ and Contacts
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FAQ: do not hesitate to consult the eDari portal FAQ.
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Contacts:
- For any problem related to the IDRIS computing account creation procedure, do not hesitate to contact us by email at gestutil@idris.fr.
- If you encounter a technical error related to the website, send an email to the email address svp@cines.fr.