For beginners
How to compute on HPC clusters — beginner's guide
Please note that this tutorial explains the fast-track process intended for HPC users affiliated with academic or research institutions, including PhD candidates.
1. Create account and log in.
Direct guideline on how to create user account can be found here. When signing up, you will need to declare your affiliation. Remember to set a password for your account. If you choose to use a separate e-mail address for your affiliation, make sure to confirm it. All necessary links will be sent to you by e-mail. If you don’t see the message in your inbox, please check your spam folder.
Before proceeding to the next steps, please wait until your affiliation has been approved.
2. Fill the grant form and request for services.
At this point you should have an active account in PLGrid portal and active affiliation. Before we jump into filling the grant form, please create your scientific team or join an existing one. Detailed instructions on how to create your own team can be found here. As the team manager (main manager), you will have the authority to manage the grant application, but you will also be responsible for the grant itself, including its final settlement.
Completing the grant application should be straightforward — the fields are well described, and the entire process is thoroughly described. Please take your time. Choose a grant title that you would also give to a scientific article: complete and clearly describing the phenomenon you are studying.
Carefully select the machine where you will run your computations. Some systems provide different types of scientific software — check the available modules and installed packages.
After submitting your application, please check the “Services” tab. Apply for all necessary services, especially those related to access to the computing cluster you intend to use for your calculations.
2 1/2. Check your e-mail.
If you need to provide additional information for your grant application, you will be notified by e-mail. You will also receive an e-mail once your resources have been approved. It is very important to keep your e-mail address up to date. Please make sure that messages from us are not marked as spam. Let’s stay in touch!
3. Compute!
To learn how to log in to a selected computing cluster, please visit this page with detailed instructions. To learn about the available methods for accessing and transferring data to the clusters, check here.
High-performance computing (HPC) systems use the SLURM queueing system which manages how jobs are scheduled and distributed across cluster resources. It ensures that computational tasks are executed efficiently, fairly, and in the optimal order. If you want to understand how the SLURM system works, find a comprehensive explanation here.
If you encounter any difficulties or have questions, feel free to contact via our Helpdesk. We are here to support you!
Last update: December 22, 2025