New grid reservation policies

Effective immediately, we'll be using the following policies to try to ensure that access to the grid and sandboxes is allocated fairly and efficiently. Also, these policies should make planning out your time on ORBIT more reliable.

1) Users are expected to use ORBIT with goodwill toward other members of the ORBIT community. There are obvious ways to game these policies in order to obtain a great deal of time on the grid at the expense of other users. Please don't.

2) ORBIT users should use the sandboxes for developing and testing their experiments as much as possible. Please do not use the grid until you have seen good results from testing your experiment on a sandbox.

3) You are limited to four hours a day of pre-approved time on the main grid.

4) Scheduling requests received before noon will be approved for the following day at some point between noon and 2 in the afternoon. For example, if it is Tuesday morning before noon, and you ask for 4 to 6 in the evening Wednesday, you will know for sure whether you have this time by 2 in the afternoon on Tuesday.

5) Conflicts will be resolved based on how much time you've already used over the last two weeks. Those who have used less time will be more likely to have their requests approved.

6) It will still be possible to request time on the grid with less than 12 hours notice. This will be done using the informal system we have in place now; if nobody else asks for a time slot you have requested, you're automatically approved at the moment your time slot starts.

WINLAB staff will do their best to resolve conflicts in such scheduling, but please do not base your plans on having such time available in quantity.

Orbit Team