Scope

As RDS is a shared infrastructure used by multiple departments, there are some rules and guidelines that users should pay attention to.

CPU/RAM usage

Although a lot of resources are available on RDS, these are intended for sharing. Therefore, if you run programs, please ensure that they do not use all the available resources. For example, running a script that automatically takes advantage of all available CPU and RAM resources can considerably slow things down for other users. This provides a slow/bad experience and prevents them from working properly. If you can, please adjust your scripts to prevent this. You are allowed to use a lot of resources, but not 100% of them. We usually recommend scaling it down to about 75% of what's available.

There are also tools in place that dynamically reallocate resources to keep things balanced. However, these tools don't always work properly, so it's always a good idea to treat the system as shared.
If you have a program that cannot be adjusted to use fewer resources, you can also run it overnight to minimise the impact on others' experiences

Matlab usage

Matlab is known to use up all available resources very quickly, which can slow down a system considerably. That's why we have adedicated Matlab servers (RDS_matlab_servers).
If you are performing intensive Matlab tasks, please use these dedicated servers so you can work at full speed without any problems.

Storage

RDS: Accessing Data

Note: Data can be saved locally on the server's (C:) hard drive. However, this is not permanent storage. Some applications might benefit from locally saved data, providing faster calculations as a result.
Therefore, although you can save files locally, you should be aware that this data is not backed up and can be purged at any time.

If you use local storage for temporary files, please ensure that you do not use up all the available space. A full hard drive can render a system unusable very quickly, and others may also need space on the local drive.

If a single user uses too much space, their data can be deleted without warning!

Please use the E Scratch Drive if it is available on the RDS node.

Profile Storage

If you have reached the storage limit of your RDS local profile, this is currently set at around 1.95 GB.

You will see a warning like this

And in the Right Corner in the Taskbar an Red icon with an X

If you are at the limit, the icon on the taskbar will look like this:

Clicking on the circled icon will show you a list of the files and their path.

Unfortunately, it isn't possible to enlarge the window. However, you can get a better view by usingPowerShell or PowerShell ISE.

This command shows you the Profiel Size in MB
Example: 564.50 MB 

"{0:N2} MB" -f ((Get-ChildItem "$env:USERPROFILE" -Recurse -Force | Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum).Sum / 1MB)

If you wanna see the Filelist and Size in MB
Example: The CSV file has been saved to the following location: C:\Users\wyssc\profile_data.csv
Example of CSV content

Get-ChildItem "$env:USERPROFILE" -Recurse -Force -File |
    Select-Object @{Name="FullName";Expression={$_.FullName}},
                  @{Name="Size_MB";Expression={"{0:N2}" -f ($_.Length/1MB)}} |
    Sort-Object -Property Size_MB -Descending |
    Export-Csv "$env:USERPROFILE\profile_data.csv" -NoTypeInformation -Delimiter ";"

This creates a CSV file called 'profile_data.csv' in your local profile. Path: C:\Users\%username%\profile_data.csv

You will then see the files and their sizes.Please remove or copy/transfer any large files that are not needed.

Then log out and log in again to ensure that your local profile on RDS is within the size limit.

Automatic logout due to 72-hour inactivity

Sessions that are not reconnected to within 72 hours will automatically log out, even if they are still active. This is because users may use a large amount of resources (200 GB of RAM, for example)
by leaving a program open when they no longer use the application. As Windows cannot distinguish whether an app is in use, this limit is imposed.