• Powerful and easy-to-use Windows and Linux based servers with the most popular statistical software installed and ready for use, plus many specialized packages.
• A separate computing environment for working with HIPAA data and other sensitive or restricted data.
• Statistical consultants who are experts on the most popular statistical software and can answer many methodological questions.
• Training on statistical computing, including workshops and an extensive Statistical Computing Knowledge Base  .
• A dedicated help desk staffed by IT professionals, with immediate access to the system administrators who run the servers.

If you have questions or run into problems, the SSCC Help Desk is available to help you from 9AM to 12PM and 1PM to 3PM. You can get in touch with the Help Desk by emailing helpdesk@ssc.wisc.edu, leaving voicemail at 608-262-0977, or making an appointment for a video chat at https://www.sscc.wisc.edu/get-help/.

Accounts

An SSCC Member is someone who has been sponsored for an SSCC account by one or more of our member agencies and departments. This means you have full access to all the SSCC's resources without charge. The costs of your membership are paid by your sponsor(s).

If you're reading this you've probably already activated your SSCC account. In the process you should have set your password and set an email address we can use to contact you. Some important reminders:

• Never share your SSCC account or give anyone your password (even SSCC staff).
• We will send announcements to your your preferred email address—including when it's time to renew your account. Make sure you it's one you'll continue to read.

Servers

Winstat is the SSCC's Windows computing cluster. Winstat allows you to log in and run Windows on the server, with full access to the SSCC network and a tremendous amount of software. You can also use it to transfer files between your computer and the network. Using Winstat has instructions.

Linstat is the SSCC's Linux computing cluster and provides additional computing power for those who need it. Running statistical software on Linstat is easier than you might expect.

The SSCC Slurm cluster has over 5,000 cores and servers with powerful GPUs. You can submit jobs to Slurm from Linstat, reserving the cores, memory, and GPU you need. Linstat servers and Slurm servers are configured almost identically and share the same file system, so if a job runs successfully on Linstat it will almost always work in Slurm. 

The Silo environment has special security controls so you can work with restricted and sensitive data, including HIPAA data, but it's remotely accessible and easy to use. It contains equivalents of Winstat, Linstat, and Slurm.  

The Guide to Research Computing at the SSCC has more details about the servers and how to use them. SSCC Software will tell you what software is available. 

Network Disk Space

When you log into Winstat or an SSCC PC, you'll find five drives mapped for you automatically:

• U: is your Windows home directory and Z: is your Linux home directory. This is private space, but relatively small (40GB each).
• X: contains Windows projects and V: contains Linux projects. These are folders where researchers can store large amounts of data and share it with collaborators. Research data is also stored in the campus ResearchDrive system, which you can map as R:.
• Y: is temporary space. Files there are deleted after 30 days. They are also completely public. Use Y: for scratch space, or to make a file available to someone else, not permanent data.

You can also access these locations from your own computer. Mapping a Drive to a Network Share will show you how.

Most new projects are stored in ResearchDrive unless the data must go in Silo. See Using ResearchDrive at the SSCC for details.

The Linux file system is available to other computers, but the Linux servers can only see the Linux file system and ResearchDrive. If you anticipate using the Linux servers, put your data on Z:, V:, or R: (ResearchDrive).

Network Disk Space at the SSCC has more information, including how to request that a file be restored from backup.

Statistical Consulting/Research Computing Facilitation

The SSCC’s statistical consultants offer advice and support to researchers doing data preparation and statistical analysis. Their primary focus is computing and statistical software issues, but they can also help with statistical methodology questions in areas where they have sufficient expertise. They also act as Research Computing Facilitators, and will be happy to help you run jobs on the SSCC's servers. Visit the statistical consulting page for more information or to make an appointment.

When you make an appointment, please send a brief description of your question ahead of time. Include any relevant code and error messages (text please, not screenshots). 

Learning More

The most valuable resource for learning about the SSCC is the SSCC's web site (sscc.wisc.edu). It includes our policies, information about the SSCC, and tools for working with your account.

But the most important part of the SSCC website is the SSCC Knowledge Base, a collection of articles on SSCC resources and statistical computing in general. Topics range from basics like logging into Winstat  to general introductions like Stata for Students or Data Wrangling in Stata, R, or Python, to specific topics like making bar graphs and mixed models.

We also offer training classes each semester which are free to the entire UW-Madison community, including both introductions to statistical software and workshops on statistical topics. Visit our training page to see the schedule and register for classes.

Again, welcome to the SSCC. If there is anything we can do to make your computing more productive, please let us know.