Reserving Premium Sizes

Owned by Mengsi Wells-Lakeland
Last updated: Oct 18, 2024
1 min read

Book specialty sizes in time windows that suit you

Premium resources

The following premium sizes are available via the RCP’s Research Server offering, though only through the reservation system. In addition to making reservations for these sizes, once your reservation starts you’ll also need to resize your Research Server to accommodate them (otherwise they won’t be operable in your Research Server, even if the reservation has commenced).

Big Memory

The big memory sizes are useful when your RAM requirements exceed 1TB.

Available sizes:

  • Big Memory (Gen 2) 7 vCPU 488GB

  • Big Memory (Gen 2) 14 vCPU 976GB

  • Big Memory (Gen 2) 21 vCPU 1464GB

  • Big Memory (Gen 2) 28 vCPU 1953GB

GPUs

GPU sizes can be used to access to virtualised GPU acceleration. These sizes can be used for graphics-based applications such as video editing and 3D modelling, as well as GPGPU compute tasks like deep learning.

Available sizes:

  • GPU A40 (48GB vRAM) 36 vCPU 361GB

  • GPU A40 (24GB vRAM) 18 vCPU 175GB

  • GPU A40 (12GB vRAM) 9 vCPU 90GB

  • GPU A40 (12GB vRAM) 8 vCPU 117GB

  • GPU L40s-32c (48GB vRAM) 32 vCPU 243GB

  • GPU L40s-16c (24GB vRAM) 16 vCPU 122GB

  • GPU L40s-8c (12GB vRAM) 8 vCPU 61GB

  • GPU L40 (24GB vRAM) 16 vCPU 241GB

Booking conditions

Users can:

  • book sizes for up to a maximum of 31 days at a time

  • cancel a booking at any time

  • change a booking’s start date if the reservation hasn’t commenced yet

  • change a booking’s end date

    • in the final 7 days of a booking, a reservation can be extended out by up to another 7 days provided there is still availability for that reserved size

  • book multiple size types at a time (e.g. Big Memory and GPUs)

Users can’t:

  • change a booking’s start date if the reservation has already commenced

  • book multiple sizes at a time inside the same size type (e.g. Big Memory 24vCPU and Big Memory 48vCPU)

Reservation system

Note: these instructions assume that you already have a Research Server allocated to you on RCP.

  1. Locate your Research Server on your RCP Home page (if you don’t see it, try switching Activity view).

  2. Click on Settings to go to the Options page.

    research_server_options.png

  3. Click Reserve to open the reservation tool.

    reserve_button.png

  4. Select a premium size from the dropdown menu.

    reservation_calendar_sizes.png

  5. Select a Host. Tip: If you can see from the calendar that the selected Host lacks availability in the dates you’re interested in, then change Hosts to see if that changes the availability.

    reservation_calendar_hosts.png

  6. Input start and end dates by clicking directly into the calendar OR by typing into the date boxes underneath the calendar, noting the following constraints:

    • Bookings can only be made up to a maximum of 31 days at a time (though in some cases may be able to be extended - see ‘How to extend/shorten a reservation’ below).

      reservation_calendar_dates.png

  7. Input a justification for the reservation.

    reservation_calendar_justification.png

  8. Press Reserve.

    reservation_calendar_reserve_button.png

  1. Locate your Research Server on your RCP Home page (if you don’t see it, try switching Activity view).

  2. Click on Settings to go to the Options page.

    research_server_options.png

  3. Click Edit against the reservation listing (the ‘My Reservations’ table in the ‘Reserve Premium Size’ page section should display all your reservations).

    edit_reservation.png

  4. Amend the dates in the calendar OR in the date boxes underneath the calendar, noting the following constraints:

    • Once the reservation has begun, you can’t change the start date.

    • In the last seven days of a reservation, you can extend the end date by up to seven days (if there is still availability for the reserved size).

      edit_reservation_dates.png

  5. Click Edit Reservation.

    edit_reservation_button.png

  1. Locate your Research Server on your RCP Home page (if you don’t see it, try switching Activity view).

  2. Click on Settings to go to the Options page.

    research_server_options.png

  3. Click Cancel against the reservation listing (the ‘My Reservations’ table in the ‘Reserve Premium Size’ page section should display all your reservations).

    cancel_reservation.png

  4. Click Cancel Reservation in the pop-out.

    cancel_reservation_button.png

Note: These instructions assume that you have successfully made a reservation for the premium size, and that the reservation has commenced.

  1. Locate your Research Server on your RCP Home page (if you don’t see it, try switching Activity view).

  2. Click on Settings to go to the Options page.

    research_server_options.png

  3. Go to the ‘Resize’ section of the page and select the premium size that you reserved from the dropdown menu.

    resize_sizes.png

  4. Click Resize.

    resize.png

  5. Click Resize again the pop-out.

    resize_button.png

  6. After the timer finishes, open your Research Server – it should now be operating with the premium size.

FAQs

It may be that the particular size you’re trying to book is already booked out (if so, the dates will be greyed out, struck through and have red dots underneath them in the reservation tool’s calendar). Try switching Hosts to see if that creates some more availability for the size.
Or it may be that the reservation you’re trying to make breaks certain booking conditions (see the booking conditions section near the top of this page for further information).

The reservation tool merely secures a premium size for your use, it does not resize your Research Server so you can actually use it. So in addition to booking sizes through the reservation tool, always remember to actively resize your Research Server in order to actually use them. Instructions on how to resize can be found further up on this page.

Has your reservation commenced yet? The size should appear in your resize options from the start date of your reservation.

While you can’t reserve multiple sizes within the same size type (for example, ‘Fast Cores 6 vCPU 72GB’ and ‘Fast Cores 8 vCPU 96GB’), you can book multiple sizes from different size types of premium resources (for example, ‘Fast Cores 6 vCPU 72GB’ and ‘GPU v100 (16GB vRAM) 11 vCPU 122GB’).

You can change the end date. You can shorten the booking by bringing the end date earlier, or you can extend the booking if (i) you’re in the last seven days of your reservation and (ii) there is still availability for the size. Any other changes should be made by cancelling the reservation and starting again.

Sometimes the GPU driver fails to automatically install. When this happens, you can follow these steps to install the necessary drivers for your GPU:

  1. Log in to your Research Server to install the Windows GPU drivers.

  2. Paste the following URL into a browser on the Research Server to download the installer: http://build2023.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/vgpu/grid/windows/538.78_grid_win10_win11_server2019_server2022_dch_64bit_international.exe

  3. Run the installer and accept the default options when prompted.

  4. Restart Windows. Note that simply ‘closing’ the VM connection will not restart the machine --- you need to go to ‘Start’, then ‘Power’, then ‘Restart’.

  5. Open the Command Line tool as an administrator. To do this, find the Command Line tool in the start menu, Right-click on it and choose “Run as Administrator”

  6. Copy & Paste the following command: curl -o "%SystemDrive%\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\vGPU Licensing\ClientConfigToken\client_configuration_token_10-11-2022-14-40-01.tok" build2023.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/vgpu/grid/client_configuration_token_10-11-2022-14-40-01.tok

  7. Restart Windows. Note that simply ‘closing’ the VM connection will not restart the machine --- you need to go to ‘Start’, then ‘Power’, then ‘Restart’.