Hyak Resources

About Hyak

Hyak is managed service that is funded centrally, through the Student Technology Fund, and by department sponsors. It is maintained by a team of data scientists in Research Computing, a unit of UWIT, and offers high-performance computing for the UW community. The CBE Dean’s Office and the Office of Research cover CBE’s access to a single Hyak “slice”. Access, support, and other information is presented below.

Support

CBE Hyak Mailman list

You may join our Mailman list for internal communications and questions:

https://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/cbe-hyak

Research Computing Office Hours:

Drop-in, in-person office hours are offered every Thursday 2:00 at the eScience Institute – Physics and Astronomy Building, WRF Data Science Studio (6th floor).
Zoom office hours are offered every Wednesday at 2:00. Email help@uw.edu for a Zoom link.
The Research Computing Club (https://depts.washington.edu/uwrcc/) is a student-led organization that offers office hours to student users once a week.

Technical Support:

CBE-IT is not able to provide assistance with the usage of Hyak. Email help@uw.edu for any questions or concerns and reference “Hyak” or any of its subcomponents in your subject line.

On-boarding support:

CBE-IT controls access to Hyak and can add users upon request.

Departments and research teams should email be-help@uw.edu and reference Hyak in the subject. The request should include an explanation of need and proposed uses, and provide time periods for which access is required, including for indefinite access.
For students or student teams, a faculty sponsor, advisor, PI, or other person in authority should email be-help@uw.edu and make on-boarding requests on behalf of their students. The request should include an explanation of student needs and proposed uses, and for which time periods access is required. Students will not be given indefinite access to Hyak resources.

Central resources:

UW Hyak Mail list Used for service changes and interruptions. If you use Hyak, sign up.

UW Research Computing Resources

The Research Computing Club Facilitates access to and training for UW’s shared super computing cluster, Hyak, and cloud computing resources that are available to all undergraduate and graduate students. The RC Club provides access to these nodes and training students to use the effectively and responsibly.

The Hyak User Wiki has great information about using the Hyak system (we are on a KLONE node).

New graphical interface

Beginning in January 2025, Research Computing now offers a graphical web interface for Hyak called Open OnDemand (https://ondemand.hyak.uw.edu/pun/sys/dashboard/) that can simplify many of the tasks that may be complex, repetitive, or require scripting. This new interface offers a file explorer to allow for file upload and download or edit, and a Job Composer to submit jobs for processing. OOD will allow interactive access for apps such as:
- Jupyter
- RStudio
- MATLAB
- VsCode (upcoming)
Virtual desktops are now available, which will allow users to launch processes through a graphical interface rather than via the command line interface.

Research Computing believes that these changes will better enable adoption and use of the platform. It will be easier for individuals without scripting or command line experience to interact with the Hyak service.

Training

Hyak staff will engage with departments or groups for on-site training upon request. Contact Carrie Dossick (be-research@uw.edu) and Ashlar Trystan (be-help@uw.edu) if interested.

The Research Computing team will record certain training videos and place them on YouTube. Topics include:

R/Rstudio
Containers
SLURM
Linux Command Line Basics
Deep Learning (upcoming)

Search link: https://www.youtube.com/@uwinfotech/search?query=hyak

Storage

For more detailed information on storage options, please reference the Hyak Storage General Information page.

Storage solutions are separated into “Hot”, “Warm”, and “Cool” categories.

“Hot” storage is for direct, on-demand, low-latency access and are accessed via Linux command line tools. Data stored in these environments is for immediate access or for when low latency is required.
“Warm” storage is for public sharing or consumption and uses a graphical interface for access.
“Cold” storage is for archival uses and has automatic geographical redundancy. Data stored here is to be held for longer terms and does not require immediate access.

gscratch is “Hot” storage solution and is the built-in storage on Hyak. Data here is not backed up to any location and may be lost at any time after a job has completed.

Kopah is a “Warm” storage solution. Request access by emailing help@uw.edu and mentioning “Kopah” in the subject line.

Lolo is a “Cold” storage solution and is a tape archival system. Data is backed up to a site in Spokane to maintain redundancies.