PSC Consulting Services

As a PSC user, personal consulting is available to you for all phases of computational science research and education projects, from inception to final results. This can include formulation of the problem, selection of the most suitable resource(s), code development and optimization, data storage, analysis and management.

Whether your project at PSC utilizes your own code or a third-party package, PSC's experienced team of user consultants will help you solve problems relating to the computing environment at PSC and elsewere on the TeraGrid, to hardware and software considerations on each supercomputer you use, and to porting and optimizing your code on PSC and other TeraGrid supercomputers.

Critical problems on PSC systems

Staff consultants at the PSC are available during normal business hours. At other times, student consultants will handle your questions and, if necessary, refer them to a staff consultant for further investigation. Our phones are staffed Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (EST).

For time-critical problems, you can reach our User Services department at 412-268-6350 or 800-221-1641.

When you need assistance, be prepared to supply us with the name of the machine you were using, the date and time that the problem occurred, and the location of any relevant job or output files.

Less critical problems

For less time-critical problems, if you are a TeraGrid user, send email to help@teragrid.org, mentioning PSC in the subject line. You will get an acknowledgement from the TeraGrid Operations Center, and then you will be contacted by PSC staff.

If you are not a TeraGrid user, send email to remarks@psc.edu. Remarks mail is usually answered within one business day.

Before you send email to remarks, make sure your PSC email is being delivered to your desired location.

Complex problems and advanced support

Certain problems require a consultant with detailed expertise in your scientific or engineering discipline, and with a developer's as well as a practitioner's knowledge of the inner workings of computational science applications. Our user consultants are trained to recognize such problems, and will trigger the creation of a team of Ph.D. level experts to assist you. You and your team may conclude that a longer-term collaborative effort is required or would be beneficial. If you are a TeraGrid user, this can be done under the auspices of the Advanced Support for TeraGrid Applications (ASTA) program. Your consultant will help you enroll in it. If that does not seem suitable, or if you are not a TeraGrid user, other means of supporting such a project will be explored.

Please contact PSC User Services if you wish to discuss advanced support for your research.