ASU Research Computing Acceptable Use Policy

The purpose of the ASU Research Computing and the resources it oversees is to further the scientific, research, and educational efforts of ASU and its partners. In general, any activity that interferes with this purpose may be modified or canceled by ASU Research Computing staff to support the research efforts of the University.

By using the ASU Research Computing systems and resources, you agree to the following Acceptable Use Policy:

1. University Policies

• 1.1 All users of ASU Research Computing resources are responsible for following Arizona State University’s “Computer, Internet, and Electronic Communications Information Management Policy” (ACD125) as well as any specific Departmental, College, or School requirements related to computing and electronics.

2. Communications

• 2.1 To maintain communication with the principal investigators, sponsors, and users of the systems, ASURITE emails must be subscribed to important outage and maintenance messages. Any accounts that unsubscribe from important outage and maintenance messages will be locked along with any accounts sponsored under that account.

3. University Use Only

• 3.1 ASU Research Computing resources are specifically reserved for the use of scientists, researchers, and other staff to further research and scholarly advancement at ASU and its associated institutions and partners. Any use of the cluster for personal or commercial gain is strictly prohibited.

4. Maintenance

• 4.1 ASU Research Computing makes every attempt to schedule server and cluster maintenance during regularly scheduled maintenance windows, however, issues do occur that may need to be handled outside these pre-described maintenance windows.

5. Jobs

• 5.1 Any jobs or processes that impact the performance or load functions of the login nodes or interfere with other users' running jobs will be terminated.
• 5.2 Cluster jobs containing wait times or “sleep loops” beyond a reasonable period, may not be run. Any job with a long wait or that contains an impactful/sustained sleep loop may be terminated without advance notice.
• 5.3 Unattended listening services (jobs that create listening ports for other computers to connect to) are strictly prohibited and may be blocked by ASU Research Center Staff without notice.
• 5.4 Cluster jobs must be run on compute nodes configured for this purpose. Running jobs on the cluster login nodes is prohibited, and any jobs/processes that impact the performance or functions of the login nodes or interfere with other users running jobs may be terminated without notice.

6. Quotas and Storage

• 6.1 ASU Research Computing reserves the right to create, modify, and enforce quotas on all user directories, including home directories (/home), temporary/scratch directories, and team data directories (/data.) Users are reminded that storage provided by ASU Research Computing is for active research only, and not for long term or archival purposes. ASU Research Computing does not backup user storage, and user files may be deleted, moved, or made unavailable as needed by ASU Research Computing personnel. Users are responsible for backing up their own data.
• 6.2 ASU Research Computing high-speed storage is for data that is actively being used for research on the ASU RC Clusters, not for long-term Project Storage. Quotas are enforced for both individual home directories as well as shared research space (/data.)
• 6.3 While ASU Research Computing makes every effort to maintain the availability and integrity of our storage products, the storage arrays are not backed up. They are resilient against failure but do not support redundancy. It is the responsibility of individual users and projects to back up their own data to non-ASU Research Computing storage.
• 6.4 Files stored on ASU Research Computing storage arrays must be under active use on our clusters. Active Use is defined as used within the last 60 days or designated as a source dataset used for reference in cluster jobs. Files older than 60 days may be removed on an as-needed basis with prior discussion with the user.
• 6.5 Agave Scratch Space: The scratch space on the Agave supercomputer is a shared storage resource for temporary files and is available to all Agave users with no per-user storage limit. The scratch space provides short-term storage for immediate use during computational jobs. Each user is responsible for limiting their use of scratch storage to minimize the impact on other users. The Agave scratch space is not backed up, and ASU Research Computing is not responsible for the deletion or loss of any files from the scratch file system. Files stored in the scratch space are subject to deletion after 30 days of inactivity or at the determination of the ASU Research Computing Department if immediate action is required to ensure system stability. ASU Research Computing will notify the file owner, sponsoring PI, and/or Department when files are subject to deletion. Files that must be kept longer than 30 days should be moved to a home directory, purchased project storage, or another storage medium. Exceptions to this policy will be determined through consultation with the Research Computing Governance Board.
• 6.6 Sol Scratch Space: The scratch space on the Sol supercomputer, like Agave, is a shared storage resource for temporary files and is available to all Sol users. The scratch space provides short-term storage for immediate use during computational jobs. Each user is responsible for limiting their use of scratch storage to minimize the impact on other users. The Sol scratch space is not backed up, and ASU Research Computing is not responsible for the deletion or loss of any files from the scratch file system. To ensure the best system stability and performance the scratch directory has a limit of 100TB per user. ASU Research Computing may temporarily expand this limit to accommodate specific research needs. Requests for additional scratch space will be reviewed in consultation with the Research Computing Governance Board Chair. Determinations will be based on the research need and Sol scratch capacity. There is no guarantee that all extensions will be granted. Sol scratch files that have not been accessed for 90 days will be removed from the system. ASU Research Computing will notify the file owner, sponsoring PI, and/or Department when files are subject to deletion. Files that must be kept longer than 90 days should be moved to a home directory, purchased project storage, or another storage medium. Exceptions to this policy will be determined through consultation with the Research Computing Governance Board.

7. Licensing

• 7.1 Some software offered on the system is controlled by individual license agreements. It is the responsibility of the user to maintain proper licensing of any user-installed software.

8. Restricted Data Sets

• 8.1 If your research data contains HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), PII (Personally Identifiable Information), PHI (Protected Health Information), or any other regulated data, please consult with ASU Research Computer Staff prior to using any ASU Research Computing systems to verify that all required measures and controls are supported.

9. Cryptocurrencies, cryptographic mining, distributed cryptography

• 9.1 Performing “mining” operations involving cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin, distributed cryptography such as the distributed.net projects, and all forms of volunteer computing such as SETI@Home are prohibited without specific prior written consent of ASU Research Computing.

10. Violations of this Acceptable Use Policy, ACD125, or other University Policies

• 10.1 Violations of the policies of Arizona State University and/or ASU Research Computing may, at the discretion of ASU Research Computing, result in the temporary or permanent removal of accounts associated with ASU Research Computing, including accounts that allow access to clusters and storage.

11. Updates to ASU Research Computing Policies

• 11.1 ASU Research Computing may, at the discretion of ASU Research Computing Management, amend, modify, and or otherwise edit the policies of ASU Research Computing as needed, and publish those changes to the ASU Research Computing website.