BwUniCluster3.0/Batch Queues

sbatch -p queue

Compute resources such as (wall-)time, nodes and memory are restricted and must fit into queues. Since requested compute resources are NOT always automatically mapped to the correct queue class, you must add the correct queue class to your sbatch command . The specification of a queue is obligatory on BwUniCluster 2.0.

Regular Queues

queue	node	default resources	minimal resources	maximum resources
cpu_il	CPU nodes Ice Lake	mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
cpu	CPU nodes Standard	mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
highmem	CPU nodes High Memory	mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
gpu_h100	GPU nodes NVIDIA GPU x4	mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
gpu_mi300	GPU node AMD GPU x4	mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
gpu_a100_il/gpu_h100_il	GPU nodes Ice Lake NVIDIA GPU x4	mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)

Table 1: Regular Queues

Development Queues

Only for development, i.e. debugging or performance optimization ...

queue	node	default resources	minimal resources	maximum resources
dev_cpu_il	CPU nodes Ice Lake	time=10 mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
dev_cpu	CPU nodes Standard	time=10 mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
dev_highmem	CPU nodes High Memory	time=10 mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)
dev_gpu_h100	GPU nodes NVIDIA GPU x4	time=10 mem-per-cpu=1125mb		time=30, nodes=1, mem=180000mb, ntasks-per-node=40, (threads-per-core=2)

Table 2: Development Queues

Default resources of a queue class defines time, #tasks and memory if not explicitly given with sbatch command. Resource list acronyms --time, --ntasks, --nodes, --mem and --mem-per-cpu are described here.

Queue class examples

To run your batch job on one of the thin nodes, please use:

$ sbatch --partition=dev_multiple
     or 
$ sbatch -p dev_multiple

Interactive Jobs

On bwUniCluster 2.0 you are only allowed to run short jobs (<< 1 hour) with little memory requirements (<< 8 GByte) on the logins nodes. If you want to run longer jobs and/or jobs with a request of more than 8 GByte of memory, you must allocate resources for so-called interactive jobs by usage of the command salloc on a login node. Considering a serial application running on a compute node that requires 5000 MByte of memory and limiting the interactive run to 2 hours the following command has to be executed:

$ salloc -p single -n 1 -t 120 --mem=5000

Then you will get one core on a compute node within the partition "single". After execution of this command DO NOT CLOSE your current terminal session but wait until the queueing system Slurm has granted you the requested resources on the compute system. You will be logged in automatically on the granted core! To run a serial program on the granted core you only have to type the name of the executable.

$ ./<my_serial_program>

Please be aware that your serial job must run less than 2 hours in this example, else the job will be killed during runtime by the system.

You can also start now a graphical X11-terminal connecting you to the dedicated resource that is available for 2 hours. You can start it by the command:

$ xterm

Note that, once the walltime limit has been reached the resources - i.e. the compute node - will automatically be revoked.

An interactive parallel application running on one compute node or on many compute nodes (e.g. here 5 nodes) with 40 cores each requires usually an amount of memory in GByte (e.g. 50 GByte) and a maximum time (e.g. 1 hour). E.g. 5 nodes can be allocated by the following command:

$ salloc -p multiple -N 5 --ntasks-per-node=40 -t 01:00:00  --mem=50gb

Now you can run parallel jobs on 200 cores requiring 50 GByte of memory per node. Please be aware that you will be logged in on core 0 of the first node. If you want to have access to another node you have to open a new terminal, connect it also to BwUniCluster 2.0 and type the following commands to connect to the running interactive job and then to a specific node:

$ srun --jobid=XXXXXXXX --pty /bin/bash
$ srun --nodelist=uc2nXXX --pty /bin/bash

With the command:

$ squeue

the jobid and the nodelist can be shown.

If you want to run MPI-programs, you can do it by simply typing mpirun <program_name>. Then your program will be run on 200 cores. A very simple example for starting a parallel job can be:

$ mpirun <my_mpi_program>

You can also start the debugger ddt by the commands:

$ module add devel/ddt
$ ddt <my_mpi_program>

The above commands will execute the parallel program <my_mpi_program> on all available cores. You can also start parallel programs on a subset of cores; an example for this can be:

$ mpirun -n 50 <my_mpi_program>

If you are using Intel MPI you must start <my_mpi_program> by the command mpiexec.hydra (instead of mpirun).