Frequently Asked Questions about the CCDB: Difference between revisions

Your CCRI is the unique identifier for your role (see "What is a Role?"). Since one person may have multiple roles over time, one CCI may be associated with more than one CCRI. Every job that runs on a Compute Canada ARC system is attributed to a CCRI.

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Compute Canada resources are made available to PIs through Resource Allocation Projects (RAP). Each RAP is identified by a RAPI and an associated group name.

Researchers are usually working on at least one research project. For reporting purposes, we need to be able to provide statistics on how our facilities are used, but the word “project” is too ambiguous, therefore we use a name which does not have any implicit meanings. Also, computing resources are not allocated to individuals, they are allocated to groups of researchers. The RAP is the group of researchers which resources are allocated to.

*RAC RAP: This RAP is created when the PI receives an award through any of the Resource Allocation Competitions. The RAC RAPI typically takes the form <tt>abc-123-ab</tt>, with an associated group name typically of the form of <tt>rrg-profname-xx</tt> or <tt>rpp-profname-xx</tt> for HPC allocations, and <tt>crg-profname-xx</tt> or <tt>cpp-profname-xx</tt> for Cloud allocations, depending on the competition.

Group name is an alias of the Research Allocation Project Identifier (RAPI). Each RAPI has a unique group name (one-to-one mapping), but it is often easier for users to remember the group name.  

Typically, group names follows this convention (where “xx” represents some sequence of digits and letters):

*Default RAP: <tt>def-[profname][-xx]</tt>

* RPP/Cloud resource RAP: <tt>cpp-[profname][-xx]</tt>

The group name is used as a POSIX group name with an associated POSIX group ID and is propagated through LDAP in the dn attribute: <code>dn: cn=rpp-username,ou=Group,dc=computecanada,dc=ca</code>

<b>Default RAP: </b> All of a PI's activated sponsored user roles are always members of the PI's default RAP. That is, confirming sponsorship of a user, confers on them membership in a PI's default RAP. This cannot be modified. However, a PI can at any time deactivate any role they sponsor.

<b>RAC RAP:</b> Membership works differently depending on whether the RAC RAP has HPC or Cloud resources allocated:

*HPC resources: At the time a new RAP is created with HPC resources (e.g. CPU, GPU, project storage, nearline storage, etc.), CCDB automatically adds as members of the RAP a) all of a PI's sponsored user roles, <i>and</i> b) all associated Co-PI roles, <i>and</i> c) all sponsored users roles of all of the associated Co-PIs. 
Any new role that the PI sponsors <i>after</i> a RAP has been created will also be automatically added as member of the RAP.

*Cloud resources: At the time a new RAP is created with Cloud resources allocated, only the PI is added as a member of that RAP. 


The PI can modify the membership of any of their RAC RAPs at any time. Any Compute Canada user with an active account can be added as a members of a RAC RAP. The PI may, for example, want to allow access to user roles they are not sponsoring (i.e. a co-PI) or remove one or more of their sponsored user roles from their RAC RAP and limit them to only be able to access their default RAP.  

There are three RAP membership permission levels:

*Owner: The PI is the sole owner of the RAP and all the allocations associated to that RAP. This cannot be changed. The Owner can add or remove RAP managers and members.

* Member: Members can use the PI’s allocation in the corresponding Compute Canada system(s). Members cannot make any modifications to the RAP memberships.

RAP membership is represented as a group in LDAP. It defines a group of users that are authorized to submit jobs against the RAPI (which is the Id of the RAP) and share files within the same Unix group.