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Eiger

Eiger is an Alps cluster that provides compute nodes and file systems designed to meet the needs of CPU-only workloads for the HPC Platform.

Under-construction

This documentation is for eiger.alps.cscs.ch - an updated version of Eiger that will replace the existing eiger.cscs.ch cluster. For help using the existing Eiger, see the Eiger User Guide on the legacy KB documentation site.

The target date for full deployment of the new Eiger is July 1, 2025.

Important changes

The redeployment of eiger.cscs.ch as eiger.alps.cscs.ch introduces changes that may affect some users.

Breaking changes

Sarus is replaced with the Container Engine

The Sarus container runtime is replaced with the Container Engine.

If you are using Sarus to run containers on Eiger, you will have to rebuild and adapt your containers for the Container Engine.

Cray modules and EasyBuild are no longer supported

The Cray Programming Environment (accessed via the cray module) is no longer supported by CSCS, along with software that CSCS provided using EasyBuild.

The same version of the Cray modules is still available, along with software that was installed using them, however they will not receive updates or support from CSCS.

You are strongly encouraged to start using uenv to access supported applications and to rebuild your own applications.

  • The versions of compilers, cray-mpich, Python and libraries in uenv are up to date.
  • The scientific application uenv have up to date versions of the supported applications.

Unimplemented features

FirecREST is not yet available

FirecREST has not been configured on eiger.alps - it is still running on the old Eiger.

It will be deployed, and this documentation updated when it is.

Minor changes

Slurm is updated from version 23.02.6 to 24.05.4

Cluster specification

Compute nodes

Under-construction

During this Early Access phase, there are 19 compute nodes for you to test and port your workflows to the new Eiger deployment. There is one compute node in the debug partition and one in the xfer partition for internal data transfer. The remaining compute nodes will be moved from eiger.cscs.ch to eiger.alps.cscs.ch at a later date (provisionally, 1 July 2025).

Eiger consists of 19 AMD Epyc Rome compute nodes.

There is one login node, eiger-ln010.

node type number of nodes total CPU sockets total GPUs
zen2 19 38 -

Storage and file systems

Eiger uses the HPCP filesystems and storage policies.

Getting started

Logging into Eiger

To connect to Eiger via SSH, first refer to the ssh guide.

~/.ssh/config

Add the following to your SSH configuration to enable you to directly connect to eiger using ssh eiger.alps. 

Host eiger.alps
    HostName eiger.alps.cscs.ch
    ProxyJump ela
    User cscsusername
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/cscs-key
    IdentitiesOnly yes

Software

uenv

CSCS and the user community provide uenv software environments on Eiger.

  • Scientific Applications

    Provide the latest versions of scientific applications, tuned for Eiger, and the tools required to build your own version of the applications.

  • Programming Environments

    Provide compilers, MPI, Python, common libraries and tools used to build your own applications.

Containers

Eiger supports container workloads using the Container Engine.

To build images, see the guide to building container images on Alps.

Sarus is not available

A key change with the new Eiger deployment is that the Sarus container runtime is replaced with the Container Engine.

If you are using Sarus to run containers on Eiger, you will have to rebuild and adapt your containers for the Container Engine.

Cray Modules

Warning

The Cray Programming Environment (CPE), loaded using module load cray, is no longer supported by CSCS.

CSCS will continue to support and update uenv and the Container Engine, and users are encouraged to update their workflows to use these methods at the first opportunity.

The CPE is deprecated and will be removed completely at a future date.

Running jobs on Eiger

Slurm

Eiger uses Slurm as the workload manager, which is used to launch and monitor workloads on compute nodes.

There are four Slurm partitions on the system:

  • the normal partition is for all production workloads.
  • the debug partition can be used to access a small allocation for up to 30 minutes for debugging and testing purposes.
  • the xfer partition is for internal data transfer.
  • the low partition is a low-priority partition, which may be enabled for specific projects at specific times.
name nodes max nodes per job time limit
normal unlim - 24 hours
debug 32 1 30 minutes
xfer 2 1 24 hours
low unlim - 24 hours
  • nodes in the normal and debug partitions are not shared
  • nodes in the xfer partition can be shared

See the Slurm documentation for instructions on how to run jobs on the AMD CPU nodes.

FirecREST

FirecREST is not yet available

FirecREST has not been configured on eiger.alps - it is still running on the old Eiger.

It will be deployed, and this documentation updated when it is.

Maintenance and status

Scheduled maintenance

Wednesday mornings 8:00-12:00 CET are reserved for periodic updates, with services potentially unavailable during this time frame. If the batch queues must be drained (for redeployment of node images, rebooting of compute nodes, etc) then a Slurm reservation will be in place that will prevent jobs from running into the maintenance window.

Exceptional and non-disruptive updates may happen outside this time frame and will be announced to the users mailing list, and on the CSCS status page.

Change log

2025-06-02 Early access phase

Early access phase is open

2025-05-23 Creation of Eiger on Alps

Eiger is deployed as a vServices-enalbed cluster

Known issues