Resources available on noto ‒ Educational initiatives ‐ EPFL

If your class is larger than 100 students or requires quite a lot of computing power, please contact us: we will be happy to check what we can do so that your class runs in the best conditions.

How much computing power (CPU+RAM) is available?

Noto has been designed to support large numbers of simultaneous users and our scalable architecture is able to adapt to peaks in concurrent connections. Nevertheless, the resources are not infinite. Currently, Noto can run up to 20 parallel Jupyter backend servers to provide a total of up to 320 GB of RAM and 320 CPU, shared between all users.

Our current policy is to allocate up to a maximum of 4 GB of RAM and 2 CPUs per user.

The resources you need for your class largely depend on the type of notebooks you use (e.g. intensive data processing vs. simple calculations). The typical use requires a minimum of 250 to 500 MB of RAM and half a CPU per user. Running a more demanding notebook (with a larger dataset and some more intensive computations) may require more around 1 GB of RAM and 1 CPU per user.

Checking the resources used by your notebook(s) on noto is highly recommended.

You can see how much RAM is used during execution by typing the command noto_mem in a terminal on noto.

How much disk storage is available?

Just like with CPU and RAM, disk storage is not infinite on noto. And because our backup system creates copies of your files regularly to make sure that you never lose your work, large files in your workspace quickly increase the size of our backups and slow down the backup processes.

You can store up to 2 GB of files in your workspace. Above this threshold, we will send you automated emails so that you reduce the disk space you use.

You can see which files and folders take the most space in your workspace by typing the command ncdu in a terminal on noto.

If your students need to process large data files for exercises in your classes, please contact us: we can set up a shared data storage for your students.

What if I need GPU(s)?

Since 2024 we offer another platform called gnoto (https://gnoto.epfl.ch/) which offers the same service as noto but is designed specifically for exercises and labs that require GPUs to run. This platform has been made possible by a collaboration with RCP (Research Computing Platform), our warm thanks to them for making the resources available.

Access to the gnoto platform is activated on demand using an allow-list (i.e. for students you need to provide us with a student list). To prepare the required infrastructure we need to know in advance how many students you expect, how much memory will be required to run the exercises or labs, the libraries and the dataset(s) that you need, and when you plan to run them.

Interested by gnoto?

Please note that asking entire classes to perform computationally-intensive tasks during TPs or projects can have a considerable impact on the environment, therefore we recommend only doing so for very specific educational purposes. Otherwise, it is preferable to simplify the type of task you are asking students to perform (e.g. reduce the size of the dataset).

About Google Colab

Google Colab is not officially supported by EPFL. However, in limited cases, students may be allowed to use Google Colab with their EPFL account (having students use a personal Google account is not recommended for data protection reasons).

You will need to request an admin of the GoogleColab group of EPFL to add the SCIPERS of the concerned students to the list of authorized access: [email protected].

A major drawback of this solution is that students also need to individually authorize API access to their Google Drive. Another drawback is that access to resources such as VRAM and GPU is unpredictable and access policies are not transparent.