Welcome to PLGrid Infrastructure!

Below you can find the most important information necessary to start using PLGrid Infrastructure. 

 


Grants in PLGrid - changes since 2022.11.1

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Basic information

PLGrid is a nationwide IT infrastructure dedicated to scientists. We provide services and resources from a federation of top 5 Polish supercomputer centers, located in Kraków, WarszawaPoznań, Gdańsk and Wrocław. PLGrid offer includes more than 2 PetaFlops of computing resources and storage space exceeding 20 PetaBytes.

Users can use PLGrid resources free of charge. Their size is to be decided by our experts reviewing Your application(s).

To get access to PLGrid resources, You have to be affiliated with a Polish scientific institution or cooperate with a Polish scientist.

Register right now! 



How to get access?

Only a few simple steps are needed to create Your account, which allows you to get access to all PLGrid services (via the web platform - Portal PLGrid).



Register

Go to https://portal.plgrid.pl/ to create Your account. Fill in the registration form with all required information. Your login must start with "plg".

You are allowed to have only one account!

More about registration

Get Your affiliation 

Affiliation in a Polish scientific institution is a mandatory requirement to get access to PLGrid resources.

You have to either be an employee of a Polish scientific institution or cooperate with one within a Polish scientific institution. If You are an employee, provide Your affiliation information. Otherwise, provide Your Supervisor's affiliation data. Then, the Supervisor will have to confirm the collaboration with You before you can get access.

After Your affiliation is confirmed, You will get access to resources such as: computing or storage resources, cloud platform, software for scientists, project management tools, e-learning tools and Helpdesk platform  — all of it in one account!

More about affiliation

Get a PLGrid Pilot grant

Grant is an agreement between a User and the PLGrid Infrastructure. Such agreement contains specification of resources allocated. Once Your affiliation is confirmed, You can easily and immediately obtain a Pilot grant .

If Your computing needs are not large or You simply want to try out how the Infrastructure works, just apply for PLGrid Pilot grant. It consists of 1000 CPU hours and 10 GB of storage for one year per one supercomputer center. If You need more resources, You can also apply for a Proper grant.

More about Pilot grants

Activate a service

PLGrid Infrastructure provides a variety of tools and services for your computational and storage needs. You can find them in our repository of services via Service Catalogue (in Polish: Katalog Aplikacji i Usług).

More about Service Catalogue


If You need more resources than offered in Pilot grant, follow the next three steps. 

Create a workgroup

A workgroup allows a User or a group of Users to negotiate resources with PLGrid supercomputer centers. Cooperating Users can share resources within a workgroup.

More about workgroup

Get a certificate

To have full access to PLGrid resources – e.g. to use them via middleware – You need to obtain a certificate. It is a special file identifying the User within the Infrastructure. If You wish to log in without having to enter a password, register Your certificate in the browser. 

More about certificates

Get a PLGrid Proper grant

Proper grant is dedicated to the Users that need more resources than provided by a Pilot grant. It is allocated to workgroups only.

Only the Team Manager is authorized to apply for and account the Proper grant. Therefore, even if You are working on Your own, You will need to set up a one-man workgroup beforehand. Once the grant is active, it can be used by all workgroup members. Requesting for a Proper grant is performed, like the other procedures, in the User Panel in the PLGrid Portal.

Only a workgroup Manager is allowed to negotiate the grant resources. The Manager is also responsible for reporting grant results in the form of reports and publications resulting from the grant (which have to contain PLGrid acknowledgements).

Grants explained in four steps:

1. Go to "Grants" in Portal menu, fill out the form and specify Your requirements. You will be required to declare expected grant results, such as publications or posters.

2. Your request might need a scientific review. Our experts will analyse Your previous grant's reports and the description of Your current request.

3. Operations staff allocates resources to the grant.

4. Workgroup leader reports progress and results of grant usage.

More about Proper grants

What's next?

Decide what of PLGrid's offer will be most useful to You. The Infrastructure offers a variety of tools for Linux and Windows users. You can perform computations, store Your scientific data or use virtual machines. You may also gain access to domain-specific services from a wide range of science fields.

Our Users get documentation and manuals at their disposal. In case of any difficulties we will help You via our Helpdesk platform. 

For less experienced Users wanting to perform computations we recommend middleware with its supporting graphical tools (QCG or UNICORE). If You are more advanced, You can access clusters directly via SSH protocol.

If Your research within the PLGrid grant leads to publications, remember to include the proper acknowledgements:

"This research was supported in part by PLGrid Infrastructure".

Before you start - watch the movie!

(For now in Polish only)