The RC condo computing service "Blanca" offers researchers the opportunity to purchase and own compute nodes that will be operated as part of a shared cluster. The aggregate cluster is made available to all condo partners while maintaining priority for the owner of each node.

Benefits to partners include

  • Data center rack space – including redundant power and cooling – and scratch disk space.
  • Partners get significantly prioritized access on nodes that they own, and can run jobs on any nodes that are not currently in use by other partners.
  • RC staff provides system configuration and administration, as well as technical support for users.
  • A standard software stack appropriate for a range of research needs.
  • Partners are able to install additional software applications as needed.
  • Bulk discount pricing is available for all compute node purchases.

To purchase a Blanca node please email rc-help@colorado.edu

CPU and GPU nodes are available. Example node configurations are indicated below, but may be customized.

Node type Specifications Cost** Notes
Compute node
  • 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6230 (2.1 GHZ, 20-core, “Cascade Lake”)
  • 192 GiB RAM 
  • 480 GB local ssd
  • 10-gigabit Ethernet
  • EDR infiniband
$9,597.41/node batch processing, high-throughput computation, and high-performance parallel/distributed computation
GPU node
  • 2x Intel Xeon Gold 6130 (2.1 GHZ, 16-core, "Skylake")
  • 1X NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPU coprocessor (12 GB memory)
  • 192 GiB RAM (2666 MT/s)
  • 1TB local disk (7.2K RPM SATA)
  • 10-gigabit Ethernet
$13,604.11/node molecular dynamics, image processing, deep learning; alternate and addtional GPUs supported

** Prices are subject to change when quoted with the order, and are provided as a guideline for expectations.