The HECToR Service is now closed and has been superceded by ARCHER.

THE HECToR SERVICE WILL CLOSE ON MARCH 21st 2014 AND WILL BE SUPERCEDED BY THE ARCHER SERVICE. Prospective users should refer to the ARCHER Website. These pages are kept for historical reasons only.

HECToR AU Calculator

This page helps you to calculate the values you need to fill in the HECToR Application Forms.

To use the calculator simply fill in the values in the input section and the remaining entries will be calculated automatically. You do not need to fill in all the fields if you are not interested in that section.

Anywhere you see a [?] you can click for help with that section.

To reset the form, please reload the page.

Input section

Select funding body [?]:

Select HECToR Hardware Phase [?]:

Largest Job Typical Job Smallest Job
Number of (MPI) processes [?]
Number of processes used per node [?]
Wallclock time for each job (hours) [?]
Number of jobs of this type [?]

Job Data

The information in this table can be used to help fill in the table on page 9 of the HECToR TA form. (You will also need some data from the fields you have filled in above.)

Largest Job Typical Job Smallest Job
Total memory required (per job)
Total time for these jobs (hours)

Additional Job Data

The information in this table is not needed for the HECToR TA form but may be useful.

Number of nodes (per job)
Memory per parallel process
kAUs (per job) [?]
Notional cost (per job) (£)

Totals

This is information on the total kAUs and notional cost of the current job specification. It is useful for filling out the table on page 10 of the HECToR TA Form and also for the cost associated with HECToR use in the Je-S submission system.

Total 'Computing Resource (kAU)' for these jobs =

Total 'Notional Costs' for these jobs = £

kAU Rates and Costs

XT kAU Rates

Phase kAUs/Core Hour Cores Per Node kAUs/Node Hour
Phase 1 XT4 (Oct 2007 - Jun 2009) 0.005 2 0.010
Phase 2a XT4 (Aug 2009 - Sep 2010) 0.007 4 0.028
Phase 2b XE6 (Oct 2010 - November 2011) 0.007 24 0.168
Phase 3 XE6 (December 2011 - ) 0.007292 32 0.233344

X2 AU Rates

Phase kAUs/Core Hour Cores Per Node kAUs/Node Hour
Phase 1, 2a (Oct 2007 - Sep 2010) 0.0192 4 0.077

Costs per kAU for Partner Research Councils

Phase Scalar cost/kAU (£) Vector cost/kAU (£)
Phase 1 (Oct 2007 - July 2009) 63.54 50.836
Phase 2a/b (Aug 2009 - November 2011) 13.71 10.969
Phase 3 5.78 NA

Costs per kAU for other Research Councils

Phase Scalar cost/kAU (£) Vector cost/kAU (£)
Phase 1 (Oct 2007 - July 2009) 107.65 861.17
Phase 2a/b (Aug 2009 - November 2011) 18.95 151.61
Phase 3 (December 2011 - ) 8.05 NA

Hardware Layout by Phase

XE and XT

Phase Nodes Cores Per Node Memory Per Node (GB) Max Nodes Per Job Max Job Time (hours)
Phase 1 XT4 (Oct 2007 - Jun 2009) 5664 2 6 4096 12
Phase 2a XT4 (Aug 2009 - Sep 2010) 5664 4 8 4096 12
Phase 2b XE6 (Oct 2010 - November 2011) 1856 24 32 1856 12
Phase 3 XE6 (December 2011 - ) 2816 32 32 2816 24

X2

Phase Nodes Cores Per Node Memory Per Node (GB) Max Nodes Per Job Max Job Time (hours)
Phase 1, 2a (Oct 2007 - Sep 2010) 28 4 32 28 12