---
title: Getting Started
sidebar_label: Overview
---

# Getting Started

A Slurm Cluster is a dedicated pool of GPU nodes with a Slurm scheduler in front of it. You submit
jobs to a queue, Slurm allocates nodes and GPUs, and your work runs — optionally inside any container
image you choose.

| Step | Page |
|------|------|
| 1. Understand the pieces | [How a Slurm Cluster works](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/getting-started/slurm-cluster-concepts) |
| 2. Create one | [Create a Slurm Cluster](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/getting-started/create-cluster) |
| 3. Run something | [Submit your first job](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/getting-started/first-job) |

---

## Is a Slurm Cluster the Right Fit?

| Use a Slurm Cluster when | Consider something else when |
|--------------------------|------------------------------|
| You train across multiple GPUs or multiple nodes | A single GPU for a notebook — use a [Node](/docs/tir/Nodes/instances) or [TIR Notebook](/docs/tir/Nodes/instances) |
| A team shares GPU capacity and needs a queue | One person, one job at a time |
| You want predictable cost for a fixed pool of nodes | You want to pay only while a job runs |
| Your jobs must run in specific container images | Your workload is a served model — use [Inference](/docs/tir/Inference/) |
| You need per-job scheduling, priorities and fair sharing | You just need a long-running process |

:::info What you are billed for
A Slurm Cluster is billed for the **nodes it holds**, per hour, whether they are busy or idle. Jobs
are never billed separately. An idle cluster costs exactly as much as a saturated one, so size it to
what your team will actually keep busy — see [Billing](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/billing).
:::

---

## What You Need Before You Start

| Requirement | Why | Where |
|-------------|-----|-------|
| **An SSH key in TIR** | It is required at create time and is how you log in | Create one from the create form's **Click here** link, or under **Personal Access Tokens / SSH keys** |
| **A Parallel File System volume** | Required at create time, and it is where your data, checkpoints and container images live | [Parallel File System](/docs/tir/pfs/) |
| **Enough credit** | Billing starts the moment the cluster is created | **Billing and Usage** in the sidebar |
| **A security group allowing SSH** | Without inbound TCP 22 you cannot reach the login node | The default SSH security group works |

:::tip Reserve capacity first for large or repeated clusters
GPU inventory is finite, and creating an 8-node H100 cluster can fail simply because the nodes are not
free. A [Private Cluster](/docs/myaccount/private_cluster/) reserves a pool of nodes for your account, so
cluster creation always succeeds and is faster. It is the right choice if you expect to create and
recreate clusters regularly.
:::

---

## The Shape of the Work

Once the cluster is Running, the routine is the same every day:

```bash
ssh root@<cluster-ip>          # land on the login node
sinfo                          # what nodes and partitions exist
sbatch train.sh                # submit
squeue                         # watch the queue
```

Everything else in this section is detail on top of that loop: which container to run, which
partition to submit to, what to do when a job will not start, and how to keep the cluster healthy.

---

## Related Resources

- [Containers with Enroot and Pyxis](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/containers/)
- [Slurm Configuration](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/slurm-configuration/)
- [Manage a Slurm Cluster](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/manage/)
- [UI Guide](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/ui-guide)
- [Troubleshooting](/docs/tir/SlurmCluster/troubleshoot/)