SMPH Computing Solutions
Overview
The School of Medicine and Public Health offers two main computational platforms: Platform X: Overview and Platform R: Overview.
This article can be used to help inform the similarities and differences between these two computational solutions.
Item |
Platform X |
Platform R |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted | In Azure Cloud Services | On-Premise, High Performance Compute Cluster |
| Ease of Use | You can request a familiar Operating System (Windows or Linux). | You will need to have at least a basic understanding of working with Linux and feel comfortable with using the command line. Currently there isn't GUI access. |
| Storage | There are several storage options and sizes offered by Windows; however, there is a pass through cost with the storage disk you select. | The only available storage is scratch storage for active computation and should not be used for long term storage. |
| Software | For a list of software capabilities please see Platform X: Software Available on VM. | SAS, MATLAB and others. There is currently a limitation where GUI based software is not supported. |
| Enabled for PHI | Yes. | Yes. |
| Ease of Changing Computational Resources | Moderately easy. Coordination with Microsoft may be required depending on what resources are available in the region. | Easy so long as it does not exceed what is supported with the physical hardware. |
| Parallelization | Not explicitly supported. | Uses SLURM to parallelize processes. |
| Cost | Cost is passed through from Microsoft services and depends on your storage and computational use. Typically cost ranges from $30 - $10,000. | Currently, there isn't direct cost from using this service. |
| External Users | Supports affiliate researchers. Departmental VPN must be used. | Affiliates would need to be allocated a NetID and provided a departmental VPN to use. |
| Example Use Case | Computing for PHI data where the research group would be most comfortable with Windows OS. | Technically savvy group that is completing computation on very large data sets (genomics, images). |
Next Steps
Platform X
If you're interested in exploring Platform X for your research needs, complete the SMPH Informatics Platform X Request form (REDCap).
If you have additional questions about Platform X, refer to the Platform X: Frequently Asked Questions KB article or submit a question to the Px Service Portal.
Platform R
If you're interested in exploring Platform R for your research needs, please submit this form: pR Access Request
If you have additional questions about Platform R, please submit a question to the pR Service Portal.
Additional Resources
If neither of these resources meet your needs, there are other campus facilitated computational platform that you can explore. Depending on your needs review Campus Cloud Infrastructure (CCI), Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC), or Social Science Computing Cooperative (SSCC).