Slurm Associations

Associations and Billing

On the VHPC, jobs are billed based on a concept known as associations. Each association refers to a combination of three factors:

flowchart LR
   A[KSU NetID] <--> B[Billing Account]
   B <--> C[QoS / Priority]

A KSU NetID can be associated with multiple billing accounts, each with their own QoS (or priority). A student user bob_student could have multiple accounts depending on class or research projects they are involved in:

KSU NetID	Billing Account	QoS / Priority
bob_student	v_class_profid	student
bob_student	g_nsf_123456	employee
bob_student	v_research_profid	employee
bob_student	g_nsf_543221	student

Depending on which Billing Account bob_student submitted their job to, the job could run with either the normal student priority or with an employee priority. The QoS for a particular user is determined by the PI responsible for the Billing Account, they just need to make a service request to make the change.

Association QoS

Currently, there are 8 QoS levels on the VHPC, depending on your relationship to the univseristy and whether your billing account is a funded or non-funded account.

flowchart TD
    X[QoS Levels] --> Y[Funded]
    X --> Z[Non-Funded]
    Y --> A[KSU Employee]
    A --> B[KSU Student]
    B --> C[USG Registered Visitor]
    C --> D[Other Registered Visitor]
    Z --> K[KSU Employee]
    K --> L[KSU Student]
    L --> M[USG Registered Visitor]
    M --> N[Other Registered Visitor]

In this diagram, each QoS level has a higher priority than those below it, and the funded accounts have a higher priorty than the unfunded accounts.