What is it?
While UFApps provides a Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) service for students and faculty to easily access and work with a large number of applications, it is not designed for faculty and graduate students to carry out complex calculations. To meet that need, UFIT Research Computing runs a separate version of UFApps where complex computations can be carried out on large data sets.
How does it work?
UFApps for Research is not free: the faculty member in charge of the research project and the research team needs to make an investment in both compute cores and storage. “Free trial” resources do not meet this requirement. If special software is needed that is not covered by an unlimited campus license, then a license must be purchased as well. Your access to UFApps for Research is linked to your GatorLink credentials.
Faculty can purchase access to UFApps for Research for a period of 3 months up to 5 years. For smaller projects, the investor can buy 4 cores and 1 TB of storage, and for medium to large projects, they can buy additional storage. The purchase is for 4 cores fully utilized. Once you are in UFApps for Research you can access virtual machines (VMs) that may use more virtual CPUs to get the computation done. The investment in 4 cores covers this variable demand on resources.
What applications are available?
The VMs in UFApps for Research have a number of widely used applications installed, ready for use.
How does storage work?
Once remotely logged into a VM in UFApps for Research with a VDI session, you need to connect to your HiPerGator storage. You purchase HiPerGator storage so that the VM can access the data fast and efficiently.
License options:
- Some applications are available to everyone at UF at no extra cost.
- Other licenses are managed as a campus license by Software Licensing Services (SLS) but require paying a fee.
- You will need to buy the number of such licenses needed by the research team from SLS and select the option “license for UFApps for Research”, instead of departmental server or desktop.
- If the research group needs a special software with a specific license that is not managed by SLS, then you must provide that license. The UFApps system managers will install the software into a VM for exclusive use by the authorized members in the research group.
Pricing
Please see our Service Rates for details on pricing.