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Stanford
Research Computing Nero GCP

Nero GCP vs. Carina

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

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

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.

 
Nero GCP
Nero GCP
Carina

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

Application and Services

  • JuypterHub

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

  • Slurm

  • Open OnDemand

  • NoVNC

Analytical Tools

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

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

  • GitLab?

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

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

  • GitLab

Application Access Methods

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 

SSH: Slurm

Interactive: Open OnDemand, NoVNC

Storage

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.

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 $100/month.

Data Transfer Methods

 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

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.

Compute Options

($) 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 

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

Security and Compliance

What to Expect

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

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.

How to Get Started

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

High Level Steps:

Support

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

Available Options:

Support