Research Server Information and Guides

The Research Server is a server-class virtual computer running on the cloud that you can use as a powerful collaborative compute resource for your research. You may find this useful for heavy computational jobs that would otherwise take weeks or months to complete or to host web services and online databases. The Research Server runs on the Cloud and uses the familiar University of Melbourne Linux (Ubuntu) or Windows 10 desktop environment. This Resource is not allocated to you as an individual researcher but rather to research Activities - as such an Activity is needed to access this resource. Research Server provides a faster way of getting an additional computer compared to buying and setting one up yourself.

How is Research Server different from Researcher Desktop?

Research Server and Researcher Desktop are based on the same technology and processes. The Researcher Desktop is intended to provide a simple way to get an additional personal compute resource to support your research.

Research Server, on the other hand, is not allocated to you as an individual researcher but rather to a research Activity and can provide a lot more processing power than the Researcher Desktop. If you need significantly more processing power than the Researcher Desktop can provide, or access to premium sizes with GPGPUs / Big Memory / Fast Cores, or you need your resource to run for a lot longer (e.g. to complete a long-running job or to provide 24x7 web-based services), or you want to share your compute resources with collaborators, Research Server is better suited to your needs.

Like the Researcher Desktop, you can select the operating system you prefer, but unlike the Researcher Desktop, you can also choose the number of virtual CPUs and amount RAM that you need. Research Servers also run for 31 days without needing to be extended, rather than 7 for the Researcher Desktop (though you can extend both).

Research Servers also provide access to the following premium sizes such as: GPUs, Fast Cores, Big Memory, and High Core counts. You can reserve these sizes for a period of time and then scale up your Research Server to use the premium size when the reservation begins.

How do I create a Research Server?

Begin by creating or switching to the Activity that you want to add your Research Server to. Then go to the Home page and add the Research Server resource to your Activity.
Once it's added, click on 'Create'.
Choose the operating system you would like from the first dropdown list, and the size of the server from the second list. You can choose based on the number of virtual CPUs you need or the amount of RAM you need. Don’t worry, if you accidentally pick one that doesn’t suit your needs, you can always change it later.
Then click “Create” (and maybe go grab a coffee while it is being prepared).
When the timer finishes, your Research Server will be ready to connect to. Click “Open” to either download the Remote Desktop connection file (for Windows) or to open a new FastX desktop tab.

Reservations and Premium Sizes

We offer a range of premium sizes across three size types: Big Memory, Fast Cores and GPUs. Unlike general sizes, premium sizes are only accessible by reserving them in advance, and for specified periods, via the reservation tool on your Research Server’s ‘Options’ page. You’ll also need to resize your Research Server to accommodate the premium size (otherwise you won’t be able to use it, even if your reservation period has commenced). Read more about reserving premium sizes here.

FAQs

There are a couple of options for rebooting:

Soft reboot: login to your Research Server and reboot it as you would a regular desktop by clicking ‘Restart’.

Hard reboot: click the options button to the right of the "Open" button on the Home page and then click the "Hard Reboot" button. Hard rebooting shuts down the Research Server and restarts it after the power has been completely turned off, clearing the Research Server’s RAM and resetting the system.

If your Research Server shuts down, the Research Computing Portal will detect this and if you refresh the portal it will change the ‘Open’ button to a ‘Start’ button. Click this to start your Research Server up again. Once it has rebooted successfully, you will be able to access your Research Server again.

When you need more (or less) compute power (i.e. vCores or RAM) to carry out your research activities, you can resize your Research Server from the original size to another size that is more appropriate to your needs. Just click on the options button (to the right of the 'Open' button) to access the Research Server Options page. Then select the desired size (i.e. vCores or RAM) from the dropdown list in the “Resize” section and click “Resize”.

To reserve premium sizes (GPGPU, Big Memory, Fast Cores), create a reservation on your Research Server’s Options page. Find the reserve button, then select a size, then find a host that has availability for the dates you would like, finally add a justification for the use of the premium size. Once your reservation starts, you can then resize your Research Server to use the reserved premium size. To extend your use of the premium size, edit the length of the reservation via the options page. You can also cancel a reservation at any time. Read more about reserving premium sizes here.

If you’re not actively using your Research Server for a while and would like to preserve the state of it without deleting it, you can shelve your Research Server. This saves the state of your Research Server to disk and frees the resources up for other researchers to use, helping the to keep the service available to everyone. The saved state can then be un-shelved later when you need it again (loading your Research Server back to the state it was in before you shelved it).

Shelve your Research Server by clicking the “Shelve” button on the Research Server Options page. You can get your Research Server back by clicking the “Unshelve” button on the Home page, relaunching it with all your previous data. Read more about shelving and unshelving here.

vCPUs are portions or shares of the underlying, physical CPUs assigned to a particular Research Server. Research Servers are launched in the Melbourne Research Cloud where the physical cores are hyper-threaded. This allows a physical core to run twice as many computational tasks (threads) at a time. Unlike Researcher Desktop, no additional subscription is applied.