January 24, 2024
Service Overview
Service Overview
Currently, we have two Windows analysis servers in service: hpcwin3.research.partners.org and hpcwin4.research.partners.org, after the retirement of HPCWIN and HPCWIN2. HPCWIN3 came into service with 4 Xeon E5-4640 processors (32 physical cores at 2.8Ghz), 320G ram running on Windows Server 2012. HPCWIN4 came into service with 2 Xeon Gold 6230 processors (40 physical cores) and 768G of RAM running on Windows Server 2019. For both servers, all the users share a 6TB hard drive with a 100G/200G soft/hard quota-limit for regular users.
Obtaining an account
First determine the most suitable platform for your project. Then complete the Windows Analysis Server account request form, or the corresponding form for the compute platform selected. Fill the forms with your profile such as email address, PI information. (It is highly desired to fill out the form using a Mass General Brigham internal email address, such as mgh.harvard.edu/bwh.harvard.edu, In some cases, if the user does not have a qualified email address, please contact us for discussion). The storage required will be limited to 200Gb. Users who need to increase the limit temporarily should contact us. We can lift the quota for a limited time.
Once registered your account should be ready in 24-48 hours.
Connecting to Windows Analysis Server
The ONLY method to get into our Windows Analysis Server is remote desktop connection (RDC).
Find detailed instructions to connect from different OS:
How to connect to Windows Analysis Servers from Windows.
How to connect to Windows Analysis Servers from Mac.
For Linux users, you may choose RDC client software as you want. For example, rdesktop
When you open your remote connection, be sure to input your user ID (not the e-mail address), the password and set "partners" as your domain. With the correct password and the domain, you should be able to login into the server.
Programs on Windows Analysis Servers
We had installed a large amount of software packages on hpcwin3 & hpcwin4. For example, Matlab2013b, 2015a. STATA13/SE, plink, Fiji, Mosaic, Maxquant. If you need to install some software package which is not available yet, please contact us directly.
Difference between closing the session and signing out
You can close the remote session via the [X] on the upper right corner of the remote desktop screen, or by selecting "Close" after right clicking on the remote desktop icon in the upper left corner of the app. This operation will terminate the current session. Terminating the session will not affect the running programs. On the other hand, signing out will terminate all the processes running on the server under your username, In most case, it is not the scenario you want, unless you want a thorough cleaning.