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allocationrequest

Requesting a Startup or Education Allocation

Who Can Get a Startup or Education Allocation?

Startup and Education Allocations on XSEDE are available to faculty members and postdoctoral researchers at U.S. academic research institutions, as well as to K-12 teachers for classroom use.

Who Can Not Get an Allocation?

Undergraduate, graduate, or high school students may not serve as principal investigators (PIs) or submit a request for Education or Startup Allocations. See the Eligibility Requirements section of the Allocations & Accounts page for more details.

How Much Time or Space Can You Get?

  • Compute Allocations: Up to 200,000 Service Units (SUs) of computing time, depending on the chosen resource
  • Data Allocations:
    • Up to 5 TB disk or database table space for data collections
    • Up to 25 TB for tape storage

(See the Allocations Types, Limits, and Deadlines table for a full list of request ranges for both Startup and Research Allocations.)

Where Can You Use Your Allocation?

XSEDE offers a wide range of storage and computation systems at many resource provider sites (RP sites). You can choose a Startup allocation from a specific RP site. For more information, see:

  • The How Do You Make a Request? section below, for a preview of what is available through the request system.
  • The XSEDE Resource Catalog, where there are tables for viewing computation and data resources and forms for requesting side-by-side comparisons or for searching by specific criteria, including Roaming

What Can You Use a Startup or Education Allocation for?

Appropriate uses for Startups may include:

  • Application development by principal investigators (PIs)
  • Experimentation on XSEDE platforms
  • Use of XSEDE systems for classroom instruction
  • Developing a science gateway
  • Hosting a data collection on disk or database table space or data storage on tape

Education Allocations are for academic or training classes such as those provided at a university that have specific begin and end dates.

When Can Allocations Be Requested?

Startup and Education Allocation requests are accepted continuously throughout the year. Requests usually can be reviewed within a few weeks. The allocation is available as soon as the user receives login information. See the Allocations Types, Limits, and Deadlines table for the complete calendar for Research Allocations (TRAC).

How Do You Make a Request?

To request a Startup or Education Allocation, submit a request via portal.xsede.org. To complete the form, you will need the following information:

  • An estimate of the computing time needed, in CPU-hours (also known as Service Units, or SUs), or an estimate of the amount of storage needed (in Terabytes, or TB). (See the Allocation Types, Limits, and Deadlines table for a full list request ranges.)
  • A short abstract of your computational project
  • A CV for the PI

To begin using your Startup or Educational allocation immediately, go to https://portal.xsede.org/submit-request and follow the procedure outlined above.

(For Research Allocations, a full request is required. The process is outlined on the Allocations and Accounts page.)