ColdFront

Before you begin

You’ll need a valid PennKey and be listed as a Faculty member at Penn
You *must* be on Penn’s campus or on the Penn GlobalProtect VPN
Decide a short, clear Project Title (e.g., Neural Imaging Group).
Know roughly your monthly spend:
- CPU core hours * rate
- GPU hours * rate
Estimate storage capacity (in TB) for your project data.
Grant with Penn Budget Code to use for the project

1) Log in to ColdFront

Go to: https://coldfront.parcc.upenn.edu and click Login
Click Login with PennKey and complete Duo if prompted.

2) Create your Project

You will be prompted to create your first project right away
- In the future, go to Project and click Add new project
Fill in
- Title: short, descriptive name (e.g., Neural Imaging Group)
- Description: 1–3 sentences on your research
- Field of Science: select closest match
Click Save and you will submit the project for review and land on the project page

3) Add a Grant (budget code)

Grants in ColdFront link your project to a funding source. This may be an external research grant (NIH, NSF, etc.) or an internal Penn budget code for cost tracking.

From your Project Overview, open the Grants tab.
Click Add Grant.
Fill in:
- Grant Title: short label (e.g., NSF CAREER 2025 or Internal Budget 12345)
- Grant Number: official code from the funding agency
- Funding Agency: e.g., NSF, NIH, or UPenn Internal
- Start/End Dates: match the grant/budget availability period
- Penn Budget Code: The internal 26 digit code for tracking expenses for this grant
- Description: optional details (e.g., restricted use, co-funding notes)
Click Save. Once added, this grant will be used to track against the utilization for this project.

4) (Optional) Add Project User

In the project, go to Users→ Add Users.
Search by PennKey or name
Assign allocations, roles, and click Add.
- Make sure to check off the individuals you would like to add. If you do not, users will not be added
- The role Manager will allow you to delegate this project to another individual

Future Tip: Users can be assigned to allocations (if they are already made)

5) Requesting Allocations

Allocations give your group access to resources (CPU/GPU/Storage) within the cluster itself. You will do multiple resource allocation requests for a single project. The recommendation is to start with Betty (Cluster) and VAST (Storage) as two resource allocations.

From Project Overview, click Request Resource Allocation.
Select Resource Type – to start either:
- Betty (Cluster) → Set your monthly compute spend limit in $
- VAST (Storage) → High speed storage for your project
Choose a resource from the drop down menu. See the next sections on the options you have.
Enter details:
- Quantity: Depends upon the resource type – $ Spend, Storage Qty.
- Justification: short description of usage. It should answer the question of “What would you tell your grant officer?”
Click Submit (PARCC will review and approve).
Submit another Request Resource Allocation for VAST (Storage) or Betty (Cluster)

6) Review Allocations

Return to Project Overview to see cards showing allocations, size, dates, and status.
Approved allocations are provisioned automatically.
- Allocation approvals are manual and generally take one business day to process

7) Updating an allocation

You can request a change to your allocations at any time! This will go through another manual review process and then be updated across all systems.

Return to your Project Overview
Under Allocations -> Actions select the allocation you would like to edit
Click Request Change
Fill in the fields Request New Value (you do not need to fill in every field)
Provide a Justification and click Submit