[Bioclusters] Chargeback(s) for cluster use?

[Kent Brodie]

Greetings - New Bioinformatics forum user here.   I expect to be an active
participant :-)

I've been asked to look into other organizations that have a 'bioinformatics
cluster' similar to ours, and to find out if any of you have any sort of
"chargeback" scheme in place for users?  (By users, that could be other
departments within your organization, or even outside entities?).

My guess is the general answer will be something along the lines of, "hey,
this is RESEARCH..... we use the system, so do tons of other users, and we
don't charge a dime".   If that's the case, I guess I'd like to know that
too!

Responses (either way) to this question would be most helpful.   Thanks,
all!

--Kent C. Brodie
  IS Manager
  Medical College of Wisconsin



PS:   Our setup, if anyone is interested:

18 nodes, each an HP rx2600 server (Itanium-2 processor), RedHat Linux AS
3.0, set up in cluster fashion with "PBS Pro".   We use it for multiple
purposes, BLAST, BLAT, etc.    System(s) configured by "systemimager" for
cloning purposes.