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Overview of Grid Computing at CAEN

Note: The CAEN computing grid is currently unavailable. For more information, please refer to our outages page at:


CAEN lab computers

CAEN's Grid implementation uses Portable Batch System (PBS) software to take advantage of the computing power in CAEN labs. These computers account for a substantial portion of the unused CPU capacity at the College of Engineering, and can be a valuable resource for students.

Computers are available on the Grid from 2:00 to 7:00 a.m., when most of them are otherwise idle or not being used. CAEN account holders can submit as many compute jobs as they like. The jobs are put into a queue and executed, up to 30 at a time. The types of jobs users can submit range from simple shell scripts to heavy computational jobs and batch processes.

  • All CAEN Linux computers are on the Grid. Note: All CAEN PCs are dual-boot machines, offering users a choice of either Windows or Linux operating systems. Computers that are booted into Windows will not be available on the Grid.
  • Although there is no practical limit to the number of jobs a user can submit, the Grid is set to throttle execution of simultaneous jobs at 30 per user.
  • The Grid will not start jobs on computers where a user has logged into the console.
  • If a user logs into a computer that is currently running a Grid job, the job will be suspended automatically until the user logs out.
  • The rmproc command should not remove Grid jobs.
  • The CAEN Hotline and the Contact CAEN form can handle your Grid inquiries/problems.

We encourage everyone to use the CAEN Grid instead of ad hoc or manual job spawning techniques. Note: The Grid is designed for serial jobs. If you require parallel work, contact the Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) which offers faster networking and longer-term dedicated node access:

Center for Advanced Computing (CAC)

The Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) delivers high performance computing, grid infrastructure, large data storage, and advanced visualization services to the College of Engineering and throughout the University of Michigan. With over 1300 processors, two high-speed switches for fast networking, and terabytes of storage, the CAC can provide resources for most any computation problem you may have. If your problem is bigger than what the CAC can handle, they can help you find resources which fit your problem size.

Find out more about the CAC on their web site at: