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Stanford
Carina

Carina vs. Nero GCP

Carina is Stanford University’s on-prem computing environment for high-risk data. Carina leverages the Stanford Research Computing private cloud.

The Nero GCP environment is Stanford’s cloud service for high risk data, built on Google Cloud Platform.

Please take a look at our overview of services below. Our team remains available via email at srcc-support@stanford.edu(link sends email) and via office hours.

 
Carina
Nero GCP
Nero GCP

Pre-Requisites
  • Project led by a Stanford PI
  • Users must have a full Stanford affiliation
  • Completed Data Risk Assessment
  • Project led by a Stanford PI
  • Users must have a full Stanford affiliation
  • Completed Data Risk Assessment
  • A valid PTA

Application and Services

  • Slurm

  • Open OnDemand

  • NoVNC

  • JuypterHub

  • Native Google Cloud services like BigQuery, Compute, Storage, Vertex AI, Kubernetes Engine, etc. 

Analytical Tools

No difference between Carina and Nero GCP.

Analytical software:

Python, R, RStudio, SAS, Stata (with proof of existing license)

Package management tools:

Anaconda (Python and R), Pip (Python), Lmod

Source code management tools:

GitLab

Application Access Methods

SSH: Slurm

Interactive: Open OnDemand, NoVNC

SSH: Command Line Interface

Interactive: JupyterHub, GCP console, or gcloud command to native GCP services

Programmatic: Restful APIs and Client lib for native GCP Services 

Storage

Storage Type: File system

Base Allocation:  
Home Directory: 25 GB
/home/$SUNETID

Shared Project Directory: 1 TB
/share/pi/$PROJECT_ID

Additional storage may be purchased in 10TB units at a rate of $97.50/month.

Storage Type: Object Storage (GCS), File system (Filestore), Data warehouse (BigQuery), and RDBMS (Cloud SQL)

Base Allocation: ($) Unlimited, cost quotas can be set up based on user preference.

Data Transfer Methods

SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol): 

  • Cyberduck (interactive), SFTP command (Terminal)

Rsync/rclone

gsutil rsync and gsutil cp:

  • Command line utility, move data between Carina and Nero.
 Move data between Carina and Nero GCP, and between Nero GCP and other cloud systems such as AWS.

gsutil rsync and gsutil cp:

  • Command line utility for medium and small (<1TB) transfers

TSOP (Storage Transfer Service):

  • Managed service, move data from on-prem to GCS, AWS to GCS, GCS to GCS, and file-system to file-system.
  • Handles large volume transfer (>1TB) smoothly

Compute Options

Login node: 1

Compute nodes: 16 - Dual Core Intel Xeon Gold 6130 (16C 2.1GHz), 

384 GB RAM

GPU nodes: 14 - (2) Dual Core Intel Xeon Gold 6130 (16C 2.1GHz), 384 GB RAM + Dual P100 GPUs

(6) Dual Intel Xeon Silver 4114 (10C 2.2GHz), 256 GB RAM, Quad NVIDIA Tesla V100

(6) Dual Core Intel Xeon Gold 6330 (28C 2GHz), 512 GB RAM, Quad NVIDIA A100 (40GB)

OS - Ubuntu 20.04

($) Scalable depending on research needs and budget

  • Custom machine size to meet research needs.
  • A large variety of machine types to choose from: general purpose, compute-optimized, memory-optimized, accelerated optimized.
  • GPU: A100, T4, V100, P100, P4, K80
  • TPU: V2-8/512, V3-8/32 

Security and Compliance

What to Expect

Cost: Fully subsidized as of 2025

Experience:

  • Access to a shared cluster with a variety of compute options
  • Compute experience offers interactive and SSH options, with job scheduler (via Slurm) available.

Cost: Explicit GCP costs with negotiated discount, pass through to faculty via a Stanford Billing Account, called a PTA number. 

Experience:

  • Scalable
  • Unified console to access a rich set of hardwares and services

How to Get Started

High Level Steps:

High Level Steps:

  • Complete User prerequisites (DRA)
  • Request a Nero GCP project
  • Connect to your Nero GCP Project
  • Access your application and native GCP Services

Support

Available Options:

Available Options:

  • SRC Team: project and environment provisioning, office hours for onboarding and troubleshooting
  • Stanford SRCSlack Channels: #nero-announce, #nero-users
  • GCP Technical Support: technical issue with GCP products and services, suggestions, feature request
  • GCP Account Team for Stanford: architecture mapping, use case discussion, cost estimation, enablement, support ticket escalation, early access to new features,  office hours.
  • GCP Slack Channel @Stanford: #googlecloudplatform

Support