Resources

Research Computing

Cloud Services

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – Coming May 2025!

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a powerful suite of cloud computing services designed for building, deploying, and managing applications at scale. It offers a wide range of solutions, including computing, storage, networking, AI/ML, and security, catering to research workloads. GCP features include: 

  • Key Services: Features include Google Compute Engine (GCE), Google Cluster Toolkit (SLURM), and Google BATCH for HPC workload management. 
  • Global Infrastructure: Ensures high availability and low latency through a network of regions and zones worldwide. 
  • Data and AI Capabilities: Offers BigQuery for analytics and Cloud AI/TensorFlow for advanced machine learning. 
  • Robust Security: Emphasizes strong encryption, identity management, and compliance for secure operations. 
  • Financial Commitment: GCP is a paid service, requiring allocated funds. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Support Available Now!

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud platform offering a range of on-demand services, including computing, storage, networking, and analytics. 

  • Key Services: Includes Amazon EC2 (compute), Amazon S3 (storage), Amazon Sagemaker (data analysis and ML), and Amazon RDS (databases). 
  • Global Infrastructure: Provides low latency and high availability through Regions and Availability Zones worldwide. 
  • AI/Machine Learning Tools: Features Amazon SageMaker for model development, Amazon Bedrock for foundational models, and AWS ParallelCluster for high-performance computing. 
  • Financial Commitment: AWS is a paid service, requiring allocated funds. 

HPC & Data Center Services

Mines Research Computing offers a variety of on-premise HPC offerings for researchers. We have two systems: Wendian and Mio.

Wendian

The Wendian computing cluster, provided by Research Computing (RC), offers campus researchers and their collaborators a high-performance computing (HPC) environment. This Linux cluster features high-speed, low-latency networking and a high-speed parallel file system.  

Key features of Wendian include: 

  • High-speed, low-latency networking. 
  • High-speed parallel file systems. 
  • Pools of a variety of types of compute nodes: standard, high-memory, and GPU. 
  • Parallel processing across cores, across nodes, and across multiple GPUs. 
  • Dedicated personal and group disk space and extensive temporary scratch space for active use. 
  • Research Computing staff provide sysadmin and consulting support and training for users of the system. 

Wendian is a pay-per-use machine. For details on up-to-date pricing, please see our policies page. 

Compute Partition:

Designed for research projects that have funding for operation use.  

Student Partition:

Designed for classroom use, student projects, and undergraduate research, the student partition offers access to 7 high-performance, Intel-based compute nodes. For details and access eligibility, please review our student partition guidelines on our documentation site. 

Mio

Mio is the oldest operational high-performance computing (HPC) system at the Colorado School of Mines, boasting a 53+ Tflop capacity. Mio no longer accepts new purchases on the system. 

  • Students can access Mio through previous advisor-purchased nodes, or for class projects, with Research Computing staff support available via consultations and workshops. 

For more details, please see our Mio documentation. 

Data Center Services

The CTLM Data center provides research infrastructure hosting, including private partitions on Wendian and non-managed servers in the hosted area. For more information, please see our Data Center guidelines. 

Orebits

OreBits is an on-premise storage platform designed to meet the growing data storage needs of the Mines community. OreBits provides a balanced solution, offering excellent performance, robust data protection, and a competitive price point. 

Ready to learn more? Check out our Orebits pricing and documentation pages for more details.  

Interested in expanding your group’s storage capacity? Submit a Research Computing Service Request. 

Data Management Services

Globus

Globus is a service designed to provide high-performance, secure, and reliable data transfer and management.  Globus is a convenient way to transfer files between users and other sites. It has both a web interface and a command line interface (CLI). For more information, please take a look at our Globus documentation page. 

Research Data Management (Mines Library)

Research data management (RDM) involves making research data accessible and reusable, often required by funders.  

  • Data repositories are key for disseminating research data. Access control mechanisms like passwords, encryption, and permissions systems are used to manage data sharing. 
  • Mines offers an institutional repository for end-of-project data deposits, helping researchers meet public accessibility requirements. It supports various access levels, multiple file types, and small to medium-sized datasets. 
  • Researchers can also use external repositories (subject-specific, national, international) and those offered by journals/societies. 
  • External repositories have varying requirements for data domain, reuse, access, file formats, and metadata. Researchers must ensure chosen repositories comply with funder guidelines. 

A data management plan (DMP) is crucial; see https://libguides.mines.edu/RDM for more information.