Trillium Quickstart

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Trillium
Trillium.jpg
Installed Aug 2025
Operating System Rocky Linux 9.6
Number of Nodes 1284 nodes (240768 cores)
Interconnect Mellanox Dragonfly+
Ram/Node 768 GB
Cores/Node 192 (CPU nodes) and 96 (GPU nodes)
Login/Devel Node trillium.scinet.utoronto.ca
Queue Submission Slurm

System Overview

The Trillium system is a state-of-the-art high performance computing platform, consisting of three main components:

1. CPU Partition

  • ~240,000 cores across homogeneous CPU nodes
  • Non-blocking 400 Gb/s NDR InfiniBand interconnect
  • Ideal for large-scale parallel workloads

2. GPU Partition

  • 61 GPU nodes, each with 4 x NVIDIA H100 (SXM) GPUs
  • 800 Gb/s bandwidth per node (200 Gb/s per GPU) over InfiniBand
  • Optimized for AI/ML and accelerated science workloads
  • Note: This partition is in high demand and not ideal for training extremely large models (multi-100B parameters)

3. Storage System

  • Unified 29 PB VAST NVMe storage for all workloads
  • No tiering — all flash-based for consistent performance
  • Accessible via POSIX or S3 under a unified namespace

Cooling and Energy Efficiency

Trillium is fully direct liquid cooled using warm water (35–40 °C input), resulting in:

  • PUE below 1.03 (high energy efficiency)
  • Use of closed-loop dry fluid coolers, avoiding evaporative towers and new water usage
  • Heat reuse: Trillium supplies excess heat to nearby facilities to minimize climate impact

Specifications

The Trillium cluster is a large cluster comprised of two types of nodes:

nodes cores available memory CPU GPU
1224 192 768GB DDR5 2 x AMD EPYC 9655 (Zen 5) @ 2.6 GHz, 384MB cache L3
60 96 768GB DDR5 1 x AMD EPYC 9654 (Zen 4) @ 2.4 GHz, 384MB cache L3 4 x NVIDIA H100 SXM (80 GB memory)

Each node of the cluster has 768 GB RAM per node. Being designed for large parallel workloads, it has a fast interconnect consisting of NDR InfiniBand in a Dragonfly+ topology with Adaptive Routing. The compute nodes are accessed through a queueing system that allows jobs with a minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 24 hours.

Storage System

Trillium features a unified high-performance storage system based on the VAST platform, with no tiering. It serves the following directories:

  • /home – For personal files and configurations.
  • /scratch – High-speed, temporary storage for job data.
  • /project – Shared storage for project teams and collaborations.

All three share a unified 29 PB NVMe-backed storage pool, with:

  • 29 PB effective capacity (deduplicated via VAST)
  • 16.7 PB raw flash capacity
  • 714 GB/s read bandwidth, 275 GB/s write bandwidth
  • 10 million read IOPS, 2 million write IOPS
  • POSIX and S3 access protocols under a unified namespace
  • 48 C-Boxes and 14 D-Boxes for data services

The storage is accessible via the NDR InfiniBand fabric for maximum performance across all workloads.

Backup and Archive Storage

An additional 114 PB HPSS tape-based archive is available for nearline storage:

  • Dual-copy archive across geographically separate libraries
  • Used for both backup and archival purposes
  • Backups are managed using Atempo backup software

Getting started on Trillium

Access to Trillium is not enabled automatically for everyone with an account with the Digital Reseach Alliance of Canada (formerly Compute Canada), but anyone with an active Alliance account can get their access enabled.

Trillium is not automatically available to all Alliance account holders. If you are new to SciNet or your Supervisor/PI does not hold a current Alliance (formerly Compute Canada) RAC allocation, you will need to request access on the Access Systems page on the CCDB site. After clicking the "I request access" button, it usually takes only one or two business days for access to be granted.

You can check if you already have Trillium access by attempting to log in. If you receive a "Permission denied" error (and your SSH key is correctly set up), you may need to opt in.

Please read this document carefully. The FAQ is also a useful resource. If at any time you require assistance, or if something is unclear, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Logging in

Trillium runs Rocky Linux 9.6, which is a type of Linux. You will need to be familiar with Linux systems to work on Trillium. If you are not it will be worth your time to review our Introduction to Linux Shell class.

As with all SciNet and Alliance (formerly Compute Canada) compute systems, access to Trillium is done via SSH (secure shell) only and authentication is only allowed via SSH keys. Please refer to this page to generate your SSH key pair and make sure you use them securely.

Open a terminal window (e.g. Connecting with PuTTY on Windows or Connecting with MobaXTerm), then SSH into the Trillium login nodes with your Alliance (formerly Compute Canada) credentials: 

$ ssh -i /path/to/ssh_private_key -Y MYALLIANCEUSERNAME@trillium.scinet.utoronto.ca
  • The Trillium login nodes are where you develop, edit, compile, prepare and submit jobs.
  • These login nodes are not part of the Trillium compute cluster, but have the same architecture, operating system, and software stack.
  • The optional -Y enables X11 forwarding, allowing graphical programs to open windows on your local computer.
  • To run on Trillium compute nodes, you must submit a batch job.

If you cannot log in, be sure to first check the System Status on this site's front page.

Software Environment

Trillium uses the environment modules system to manage compilers, libraries, and other software packages. Modules dynamically modify your environment (e.g., PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH) so you can access different versions of software without conflicts.

A detailed explanation can be found on the modules page.

Commonly used module commands:

  • module load <module-name> – Load the default version of a software package.
  • module load <module-name>/<module-version> – Load a specific version.
  • module purge – Unload all currently loaded modules.
  • module avail – List available modules that can be loaded.
  • module list – Show currently loaded modules.
  • module spider or module spider <module-name> – Search for available modules and their versions.

Handy abbreviations are available:

  • ml – Equivalent to module list.
  • ml <module-name> – Equivalent to module load <module-name>.

Tips for Loading Software

Properly managing your software environment is key to avoiding conflicts and ensuring reproducibility. Here are some best practices:

  • Avoid loading modules in your .bashrc file. Doing so can cause unexpected behavior, particularly in non-interactive environments like batch jobs or remote shells. For more information, see our .bashrc guidelines.
  • Instead, load modules manually or from a separate script. This approach gives you more control and helps keep environments clean.
  • Load required modules inside your job submission script. This ensures that your job runs with the expected software environment, regardless of your interactive shell settings.
  • Be explicit about module versions. Short names like gcc will load the system default (e.g., gcc/12.3), which may change in the future. Specify full versions (e.g., gcc/13.3) for long-term reproducibility.
  • Resolve dependencies with module spider. Some modules depend on others. Use module spider <module-name> to discover which modules are required and how to load them in the correct order. For more, see Using module spider.

Using Commercial Software

You may be able to use commercial software on Trillium, but there are a few important considerations:

  • Bring your own license. You can use commercial software on Trillium if you have a valid license. If the software requires a license server, you can connect to it securely using SSH tunneling.
  • SciNet and the Alliance (formerly Compute Canada) do not provide user-specific licenses. Due to the large and diverse user base, we cannot provide licenses for individual or specialized commercial packages.
  • Freely available commercial tools. Some widely useful commercial tools are available system-wide, such as compilers, math libraries, debuggers.
  • Software not available (unless you bring your own license): tools like MATLAB, Gaussian, and IDL are not provided centrally. If you have your own license, you are welcome to install and use them.
  • Open-source alternatives are available. Consider using freely available tools such as Python, R, and Octave, which are well-supported and widely used on the system.
  • We're here to help. If you have a valid license and need help installing commercial software, feel free to contact us, we'll assist where possible.

A list of commercial software currently installed on Trillium (for which you must supply a license to use) is available on the Commercial Software page.

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