2021-02-10
FAST has been open to Chinese astronomers since it obtained the National Construction Acceptance on January 11, 2020. FAST Data Center is a major part of FAST for serving the scientific community.
Regular storage and archiving service of FAST data is free of charge, because these are fully funded by the Chinese government.
Additional storage and compute resources are provided by FAST self-raised fund in order to facilitate data processing, analysis, and production. As such, these additional resources are provided in the form of paid services to encourage efficient utilization. The tariff below for the paid services is intended to provide more FAST users with quality services for data reduction.
Storage service for “Basic Observation Data”, defined by data rate, is free of charge. For single-beam observations, the data rate of Basic Observation Data for each project has an upper limit of 100MB/s. The limit is increased to 200MB/s for projects that have to preserve data from all the beams. For data exceeding these rates, users may pay for the storage of observation data according to the tariff in Section 3 “Additional Services”. FAST may compress or delete unpaid observation data that exceeds the rate limits of Basic Observation Data in the case storage capacity is under pressure.
Users can copy-out observation data for reduction at other facilities. The FAST data center provides necessary assistance free of charge.
Alternatively, the computer cluster of the FAST Data Center can be used to process FAST observation data through a job scheduling system. Detailed service charge is as follows:
Users from projects with significant scientific potential but are lack of necessary financial support can request for postponed payment or exemption of computing and storage charges from the FAST Operation and Development Center. Such financial aid must be requested with written application with official stamp of the applicant’s affiliated institution. The application should describe the scientific significance of the project and the situation of financial difficulty. If approved by the FAST Operation and Development Center, user can delay their payments for the computing and data storage cost.
Users with financial aid from FAST have a resource limit of 20 CPU cores, 1 GPU cards, and 20TB cluster storage. The total CPU time in the application should not exceed 10000 core·hour. The total GPU time in the application should not exceed 3000 card·hour.
Paid users of FAST Data Center can sign contracts with National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC). Invoices are provided by the NAOC after payment. Users are advised to watch their balance and make pre-payment in time to avoid unexpected termination of service. The balance on the associated user account remains valid two year after termination of the contract, and can be used to pay for the services from the FAST Data Center.
China National Super Computing Center Service fee (2019)