Create a Slurm cluster

Prerequisites

Before creating a Slurm cluster, you need:

• A Vantage account and organization.
• A configured Cloud Account for your chosen provider — see Compute Providers.
• AWS only: An SSH key pair created in the target AWS region. Vantage uses the key pair name to provision cluster nodes — it never receives the private key.

AWS

The most common Slurm path. Vantage uses CloudFormation to provision a VPC, Auto Scaling groups, and IAM roles, then installs Slurm on the controller and worker nodes.

1. Open Clusters — Click Clusters in the left sidebar, then click Slurm in the cluster type navigation, then click Prepare Cluster. A modal opens with the Configure step.

2. Configure the cluster — Enter a Cluster Name (max 27 characters, must be unique; used as the CloudFormation stack name) and optional Description. Select your AWS Cloud Account, then click Continue. The Provider step opens.

   tip

   In the Configure step you can also select a ready Kubernetes Cluster as the deployment target to create a Slurm-on-Kubernetes cluster instead. See Slurm on Kubernetes.

3. Configure AWS resources — Set the Region (the dropdown loads after you select the cloud account). The Head Node Machine Type auto-fills a default — click Select Head Node to browse by vCPU, GPU, and price. Select an SSH Key Name (the list loads after you pick a region; create a key pair in the AWS EC2 console first if empty). Click Proceed to Select Partitions. The Partitions step opens.

   Click Advanced Options to pin the cluster to a specific VPC, Head Node Subnet, and Compute Node Subnet. Leave these empty to use AWS-managed defaults (Vantage creates a VPC, public and private subnets, Internet Gateway, NAT Gateway, and security groups automatically).

4. Set partitions — A default partition named compute is pre-filled. For each partition:

   • Give it a Partition Name.
   • Click Select Compute Node to choose the instance type for worker nodes.
   • Set the Maximum node count — Vantage scales up to this limit when jobs are waiting.
   • Click Add Partition to create additional partitions for different workload types (e.g., a GPU partition alongside a CPU partition).

5. Submit — Click Prepare Cluster. Vantage generates a CloudFormation template and creates the stack. Provisioning typically takes a few minutes.

What Vantage provisions on AWS

Resource	Details
VPC	10.0.0.0/16 CIDR (only created if VPC not provided)
Subnets	Public + private subnets
Internet Gateway	For public subnet outbound
NAT Gateway	For private subnet outbound
Security groups	Slurm inter-node communication
IAM instance profiles	Grant nodes access to assume the cluster role
EC2 Auto Scaling group	Worker nodes with configured instance type and limits
Slurm controller	Always-on head node (EC2 instance)

Azure

1. Open Clusters — Click Clusters, then click Slurm in the cluster type navigation, then click Prepare Cluster.

2. Configure the cluster:

   • Enter a Cluster Name (max 27 characters, must be unique).
   • Select your Azure Cloud Account.
   note

   This provider uses backend defaults for provisioning. Review your cloud account configuration before submitting.

3. Submit — Click Create Cluster. Azure Slurm clusters use Vantage-managed defaults for node configuration and networking. Partitions are configured post-creation from the Partitions tab on the cluster detail page.

GCP

1. Open Clusters — Click Clusters, then click Slurm in the cluster type navigation, then click Prepare Cluster.

2. Configure the cluster:

   • Enter a Cluster Name (max 27 characters, must be unique).
   • Select your GCP Cloud Account.
   note

   This provider uses backend defaults for provisioning. Review your cloud account configuration before submitting.

3. Submit — Click Create Cluster. GCP Slurm clusters use Vantage-managed defaults for node configuration and networking. Partitions are configured post-creation from the cluster detail page.

On-premises

On-premises Slurm clusters connect through a lightweight agent deployed on your infrastructure. Vantage does not provision cloud resources — you provide the compute.

For full setup guides covering manual, Ansible, Terraform, Multipass, and Juju (Charmed HPC) clusters, see On-Premises clusters.

tip

On-premises clusters created through the web UI use the manual method. For automated setup, use Ansible or Terraform. For local development and testing, use Multipass or Juju via the Vantage CLI.

What happens after submission

After you submit the creation form, the cluster immediately enters preparing status. The exact provisioning steps depend on the provider:

• AWS — Vantage generates a CloudFormation template and calls create_stack. The stack provisions VPC, subnets, IAM roles, and EC2 instances asynchronously. Once the head node boots, the Vantage connector registers the node and uploads the Slurm configuration. The cluster transitions to ready.
• Non-AWS cloud — Vantage provisions infrastructure through your provider's API. The cluster transitions to ready once provisioning completes.
• On-premises — Vantage creates the database record and waits for the agent to connect. The cluster transitions to ready when the agent first phones home.

tip

Poll the cluster status from the Clusters list or via the API. Start with low max node counts — you can raise them later from the Partitions tab. Idle provisioned nodes bill at full rate.