Priority Tier Service

Priority Tier is an opt-in YCRC compute service for computational jobs, effective December 1st, 2024. This compute charging model was developed in close collaboration with faculty, YCRC staff, and university administrators to ensure that the YCRC service charging models support the researchers who rely on our systems and the University’s needs.

Iron Chess Pieces on a Wooden Chessboard

How It Works

Computations submitted to a Priority Tier partition will precede all pending jobs in the corresponding standard tier partitions in the scheduling queue to provide a “fast-lane”. To ensure researchers receive the best and consistent value for their funds, Priority Tier partitions comprise the YCRC’s newest generation of nodes and GPUs.

All computations on the “standard” tier of partitions (e.g., day, week, mpi, GPU), private nodes, and scavenge partitions do not incur any charges. Researchers can escalate specific important computations to the Priority Tier and run less urgent workloads in the Standard Tier.

Rate Structure

The Service Unit rate structure for the Priority Tier is derived to closely match the prorated cost of a similar dedicated node over a 5-year expected lifetime. As such, Priority Tier is an alternative to purchasing dedicated nodes. For the same cost, researchers can realize 100% of the value of their funds (compared to inevitable idle time on dedicated nodes) and always be computing on the YCRC’s latest resources (vs dedicated nodes which get more out of date every year and are decommissioned after 5 years).

Estimated Costs

To assist with cost estimates and budgeting, we provide a Cost Calculator.

Request Access

Access to Priority Tier partitions is granted upon request from a Primary Investigator. We invite you to learn more about the Priority Tier application and the onboarding process. 

Using the Priority Tier Partition

Please visit our User Guide for detailed information on using the Priority Tier partitions for computation.