DocumentationServer Policies
Automatic Idle Shutdown Policy
To promote effective computing — and to ensure fair access to expensive cluster hardware (especially GPUs) for all researchers — unused notebooks may be deleted based on resource usage. An automated script evaluates active notebooks once every 24 hours.
| Server Type | Idle Threshold | Grace Period Before Deletion |
|---|---|---|
| Notebooks with GPU | < 0.005 GPU utilization (CPU usage is ignored) | 2 consecutive days of inactivity |
| CPU-Only Notebooks | < 0.1 CPU cores utilized | 4 consecutive days of inactivity |
If at least 1 GPU was requested, the mechanism checks GPU usage and does not care about CPU usage (GPU is a more expensive resource). If no GPU was requested, only CPU usage is checked.
How usage is measured: Notebook CPU usage is measured over 24 h as the average CPU usage (in CPU seconds) over 5-minute-long segments; the final maximum is chosen from all segments. If that maximum is under 0.1, the instance is internally marked with its first warning. GPU usage is measured the same way as the average portion of time the graphics engine was active; if the maximum is under 0.005, the instance is marked.
On the next daily run, if the maximum is still under the threshold, the counter is increased by one; when it reaches threshold+1 (e.g., 5 for CPU, as 4 days have already passed), the instance is deleted. If usage rises above the threshold, the mark is completely removed — you apparently started using the notebook again.
Low-Usage Notifications
If the notebook is marked for deletion, you will receive an e-mail informing you about the situation for every warning until the instance is truly removed, and a final e-mail when it is deleted. The e-mail goes to the address configured in your MetaCentrum account as the preferred address.
You are not forced to do anything about the instance if you receive an e-mail — but if the usage does not go up, it will be deleted. We recommend saving the results or copying them elsewhere if you receive a warning.
How to Keep Your Server Alive
Simply running a calculation that exceeds the threshold resets your warning counter to zero automatically.
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