4.2 Information About Available Department Infrastructure#

How to get your project experiments running#

There are many different way to get your experiments running during your thesis project. They range from options that have more control over ones that cost you money.

The main approaches to get your computational experiments running are as follows:

  • In you personal computer/laptop

  • In department infrastructure

  • In the Cloud (e.g. Google Cloud, AWS, Azure etc.) >> $$$

  • In your supervisor’s infrastructure (Optional)

  • High Performance Grid (Not Likely)

The most cost-effective approach that gives you most control is using your own personal computer/laptop.

Department Infrastructure#

The department has some compute infrastructure taught masters students can use.

  • Available free-of-charge/ But can get occupied really quickly

  • 3 Labs in Malet Place Engineering Building (MPEB)

    • Open 8:00 am to 7:00 pm weekdays only

    • Lab 121

      • 30 Desktops

      • 16GB RAM

      • Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Graphic Cards

    • Lab 105

      • 18 Desktops

      • Intel i9 processors

      • 128GB RAM

      • Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Graphic Cards

    • Lab 406

      • Monitors with Internet (BYOD)

Details about labs: https://tsg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/labs-2/

Any further information, you can contact the CS department Technical Servicesa Division (TSG)

Cloud#

Cloud services are an alternative approach that is available to you. *** It is important to know that using cloud infrastructure carelessly can cost you substantial amounts of money .*** However, this is an option available to you. In many cases, the university or your supervisor is Unlikely to have cloud credits you can use.

Your supervisor’s infrastructure (Optional)#

Many academics at UCL are part of research groups that maintain their own compute infrastructure orthogonal to departmental infrastructure that is shared. This infrastructure is strictly for research purposes.

Your supervisor might have access to infrastructure that they would be happy for you to use. In the case you are working with a challenging problem, you can ask your supervisor if there is any infrastructure that they can facilitate for you to use.

High Performance Computing Grid (Last resort)#

UCL maintains a High Performance Computing (HPC) Grid that is exclusively for the use of research students (NOT TAUGHT STUDENTS). In rare exceptions, taught students are granted access to use this HPC grid.

In the absence of any other alternative to running your experiments, you may contact your supervisor and explore if getting access to HPC grid is an option.