Skip to main content

Note: In case of dispute, the German wording shall be valid.

1. Preamble

These Terms of Use have been created by the HPC Team of the Zentrum für Informations- und Medientechnologie (ZIMT) of the University of Siegen (“HPC Team” hereafter) as an addition to the General Terms of Use (Allgemeine Nutzungsrichtlinien) of ZIMT. They apply to all persons (“Users”) who use the resources for scientific computing and high performance computing (HPC) of ZIMT, including the OMNI cluster and other systems, collectively referred to as “Resources” hereafter.

2. Access

Users may gain access to the Resources for the purpose of running computations (“Access” hereafter) in the following ways:

2.1. Employees of Uni Siegen may book Access for themselves. The Access is active until the termination of the employee’s employment at Uni Siegen, or until the employee cancels it, unless the HPC Team revokes it (e.g. due to violation of terms).

2.2. Students of Uni Siegen may gain Access if an employee who already has Access adds the student. The employee is reponsible for the student’s proper use of the Resources. Student Access is granted in 12-month intervals and may be renewed any number of times.

2.3. People who are neither an employee nor a student of Uni Siegen may request Access from the HPC Team. The HPC Team decides on a case-by-case basis whether to grant Access.

2.4. Access is only possible with key-based authentication, and is tied to the User’s user ID (ZIMT-Kennung). As an exception, Users may access the Resources using only their username and password from within the Uni network or Uni VPN.

2.5. Users may not share their login credentials with other persons. Users may not store unencrypted login credentials on the OMNI cluster (e.g. login key pairs for other clusters).

2.6. Access is not allowed for persons from countries who are under embargo by the German government (as specified by the embargo list of the Bundesamt für Wirtschaft und Ausfuhrkontrolle), nor for members of organizations from those countries. Example countries include Iran and North Korea, however the User is responsible for verifying their country is not under embargo.

3. Allocation of Compute Time

3.1. Compute time on the Resources is allocated in the form of individual computations (hereafter “Jobs”). Each Job is assigned to a specific User. Jobs are assigned a priority based on criteria that ensures that all Users get a fair share of the Resources and waiting times are minimized. This assignment is done by an automated system and the HPC Team will not interfere with this system. The only exception is for teaching events (e.g. exercises during seminars). Here, the HPC Team may grant reserved access to part of the Resources for the participants for the duration of the teaching event. This is granted upon request and the HPC Team makes no guarantee that reservations will be granted.

3.2. The HPC Team makes no guarantees as to the availability of the Resources. The HPC Team tries to ensure that the Resources are available as much as possible and Jobs can finish their runs properly. However the HPC Team reserves the right to cancel a User’s Jobs prematurely without warning.

4. Duties of the User

4.1. The User is required to use the Resources responsibly. Specifically, the login nodes should not be blocked by high CPU load.

4.2. Users should report system malfunctions and errors to the HPC Team as soon as possible.

4.3. Users may not use the Resources, particularly the data storage systems (hard drives), for private, commercial or illegal purposes.

4.4. Users may not use the resources for proliferation-related purposes (e.g. nuclear, biological or chemical weapons) or military purposes.

5. Duties of Information

5.1. Users are required to report all publications, including BSc. and MSc. theses, for which the Resources have been used, soon after publication. The HPC Team reserves the right to reference these publications publicly (e.g. list them on the cluster website).

5.2. Users are required to mention that the Resources were used in the creation of a scientific publication (e.g. “the OMNI cluster of Uni Siegen was used for the computations” in the Acknowledgement section of a paper).

5.3. Users are required to report their use of the Resources to the HPC Team after completion of a project or end of a User’s use of the Resources. This includes particularly the following information:

  • A general short description of the most important scientific results and scientific works for which the Resoucres were used.
  • References to third-party funded projects to which the use of the Resources has contributed significantly.
  • The title of the User’s institute, chair or workgroup and all scientific works related to that institute, chair or workgroup that use the Resources.
  • Cooperations with external partners.
  • A list of the software used (both installed by the User themselves and centrally installed software).

6. Data Protection, Backup and Deletion

6.1. The HPC Team has the right to view the User’s data in accordance with German data protection laws, privacy laws and laws governing the privacy of telecommunication, to the extent that this is necessary for maintenance and user support purposes. The User will be informed when their data is accessed in this way. This is separate from the rights of German law enforcement agencies.

6.2. The e-mail address of the User will be added to a mailing list upon gaining access to the Resources. This mailing list is used solely by the HPC Team and solely to announce news about the HPC Service. The User’s e-mail address and Access status are not made public. The User is required to check these announcements and the information contained therein regularly.

6.3. The HPC Team may gather data about the Resources, individual Jobs or individual programs running on the Resources, and analyse these data internally, in accordance with German data protection laws, privacy laws and laws governing the privacy of telecommunication. The HPC Team may additionally be required by funding agencies to report anonymized Resource usage data to the funding agencies.

6.4. The HPC Team makes no guarantees regarding the availability or backups of any data on the Resources.

6.5. The HPC Team reserves the right to delete all of a User’s data after 6 months after the User’s Access has ended.