Allocate nodes to projects

Allocate a private cluster’s free nodes to a project so that it can run instances and other services on them. Add or remove nodes later as the project’s needs change, and move capacity to another project when its current one is done with it. Allocating and removing nodes is free, and moving a free node to another project only reassigns it.

Before you begin

• A private cluster with at least one Free node. See Create a private cluster.
• The Owner or Admin role to add nodes to a project or move them between projects. A member with update access to a project can remove nodes from that project’s own share; see Nodes, projects, and access.

Allocate nodes to a project

A project’s share of the cluster is created the first time you allocate nodes to it.

1. In Manage Private Cluster, open the cluster’s Actions menu and select Allocate Nodes to Project. On the cluster’s Project Allocations tab, Allocate Nodes does the same.
2. In Allocate Nodes to Projects, choose the project.
3. Set how many nodes to give it, up to the cluster’s Free node count.
4. Select Allocate Nodes.

The nodes move from Free to Allocated, and the project is listed on Project Allocations with its Total Allocated Nodes.

To give a project one particular node instead, open Cluster Nodes, open a Free node’s row menu, select Allocate Node, and choose the project.

Add or remove nodes for a project

1. On Project Allocations, find the project’s row and select Manage Nodes.
2. Choose Add More Nodes or Remove Nodes. You can see the nodes available to allocate, the nodes the project already has, and the cluster’s total.
3. Set the number of nodes. You can add up to the cluster’s Free nodes, and remove up to the project’s free nodes, the ones that show Allocated.
4. Select Add Nodes or Remove Nodes.

An Occupied node stays with its project until you stop or delete the service on it. Before you take a project’s last node, delete any stopped instance, model endpoint, or vector database it still has on the cluster; TIR lists them by name if any are left.

Take one node off a project

1. On Cluster Nodes, check that the node shows Allocated.
2. Open the node’s row menu and select Remove Node.
3. Tick “I understand and want to remove node: <name>.”, where <name> is the node’s name, and confirm.

The node goes back to Free, ready for another project. Remove Node is offered only on an Allocated node. Removing a node that runs a training-cluster workload is refused with “Node <name> is not free.” Stop or delete what runs on it first.

Move capacity to a different project

A node goes to another project through the cluster’s free nodes:

1. Stop or delete the services on the node, so that it is Allocated again.
2. Remove the node from its project.
3. Allocate the now Free node to the other project.
4. Create the services again in the new project; a service stays in the project it was created in.

Check the allocation

Project Allocations shows each project’s Total Allocated Nodes, Occupied Nodes, and Free Nodes, and Cluster Nodes shows each node’s status and the project it belongs to.

To make room for another project on the cluster, take back a project’s idle nodes instead of adding nodes to the cluster. To run something on the nodes, see Launch services on a private cluster. For help with a refused allocation or removal, see Troubleshooting TIR Private Cluster.