ARCHER News
Tuesday 24th October 2017
- HPC-UK: a new resource for UK researchers
- Diversity in HPC Ambassadors at SC17
- Performance Portability Virtual Tutorial - Wednesday 8th November 2017 14:00 GMT
- Supercomputing MOOC
- Training : Upcoming ARCHER Training Opportunities
HPC-UK: a new resource for UK researchers
HPC-UK is a community resource that brings together information to support researchers using HPC, and the people (such as research software engineers) who support those researchers. It provides a coherent view of what is available, how to access it, where to get training, and how to get the most out of HPC applications. Anyone can contribute to the website, note issues or request features through GitHub. HPC-UK provides a central location for researchers to find out about available HPC facilities and to provide support to help them get the most out of using HPC in their research.
The core resource is an open source, community website that provides links to facilities, information on HPC training and how to access HPC facilities, and support to enable researchers to get the most out of HPC applications.
Facilities
It is difficult for researchers to know what HPC facilities are available, and the differences between them. HPC-UK provides an accurate list of the HPC facilities available to UK researchers, both from the UK and internationally. To make the list as relevant as possible, it concentrates on those that have publicised access routes for UK researchers.
Access
It can also be difficult to know how to access HPC facilities. HPC-UK brings together all access routes, making it easy for researchers to assess their options and plan applications. Access routes can vary according to the scale of facilities, and HPC-UK offers a simple way to find out which routes are available on which facilities.
Training
Providing researchers with the skills to exploit HPC facilities is key to getting the most out of the UK investment in HPC. HPC-UK offers a single portal to the HPC training available across the UK and online. The training section contains links to different HPC training options, but in future we will provide a live list of upcoming courses to make it as easy as possible to find out what is available.
Applications
HPC software generally has a much longer lifetime than the hardware in a particular facility, and is at least as important to researchers for the effective use of HPC. HPC-UK provides information on the performance of applications on different HPC facilities to help researchers choose the correct facility for their research and optimise their use of resources. Descriptions of how to compile different applications on various HPC facilities are also provided to help researchers and those who support them to compile their applications on different HPC architectures.
Future plans
We intend to provide a list of local UK HPC Champions to allow researchers to speak in person about their use (or potential use) of HPC, and to increase the amount of application benchmarking information available.
HPC-UK is a collaboration between EPCC, the UK Association of Research Software Engineers, and sites running UK national HPC facilities. To contribute to HPC-UK please feel free to use the GitHub repository or get in touch.
Diversity in HPC Ambassadors at SC17
Are you going to SC17? Would you like to help Women in HPC (WHPC) spread the word about the importance of diversity and inclusion? Then we need you!
On the Tuesday of SC17 (14th November) we will be hosting a 'Women in HPC, members, allies & advocates supporters day'. We are hoping to get 50-100 volunteers to wear a WHPC t-shirt, to raise the profile of the importance and benefits to the community of diversity, inclusion and the mission of WHPC.
We need everyone - men as well as women, all ages, races and ethnicities. This is about discussing the benefits of inclusion, and not just for women, though we admit that's where we start!
Volunteers will get a T-shirt, guidance and some key facts to discuss. Then we just ask that you go about your SC17 Tuesday as if it were any other day of the conference, but be ready to answer questions and wear your WHPC T-shirt with pride! You don't need to know all the answers, just where to point people (the WHPC website is a good start, but we will give you other ideas too!).
If you believe diversity & inclusion is a benefit to the community, and you are willing to join us at SC17, please register your interest here.
Performance portability on current and upcoming archictures: Virtual Tutorial Wednesday 8th November 2017 14:00 GMT (An hour earlier than our usual slot)
Peter Boyle, University of Edinburgh
Peter will discuss performance portable programming used to develop a data parallel structured grid QCD library. Instructions sets targetted include Arm Neon, IBM BlueGene QPX, Intel SSE, AVX, AVX2 and AVX512, and AMD EPYC processors. Performance as high as 30% of peak is obtained through the compiler in single node code.
He will also discuss performance optimisation for current interconnects and in particular the exploitation of dual rail Omnipath for QCD and for machine learning.
Further details, including joining instructions, can be found at: Virtual Tutorials and Webinars
Supercomputing MOOC
Began 28th August 2017 but you can join at any time during the run.
Discover how supercomputers work and the real-life scientific breakthroughs made possible by today's computer simulations.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/supercomputing/
Upcoming Training Opportunities
- Programming the Manycore Knights Landing Processor 31 Oct - 1 Nov 2017 Cambridge
- Single-node Performance Optimisation 6 - 7 November 2017 Oxford
- GPU Programming with CUDA 21-22 November 2017 Daresbury
- Hands-on Introduction to HPC 4-5 December 2017 Alan Turing Institute London
- Advanced OpenMP (in conjuction with INTERTWinE) 12-14 December 2017 Imperial College London
