Online OpenMP
ARCHER, the UK's national supercomputing service offers training in software development and high-performance computing to scientists and researchers across the UK.
ARCHER courses are offered free of charge to all academics.
Details
Almost all modern computers now have a shared-memory architecture with multiple CPUs connected to the same physical memory, for example multicore laptops or large multi-processor compute servers. This course covers OpenMP, the industry standard for shared-memory programming, which enables serial programs to be parallelised easily using compiler directives. Users of desktop machines can use OpenMP on its own to improve program performance by running on multiple cores; users of parallel supercomputers can use OpenMP in conjunction with MPI to better exploit the shared-memory capabilities of the compute nodes.
This course will cover an introduction to the fundamental concepts of the shared variables model, followed by the syntax and semantics of OpenMP and how it can be used to parallelise real programs. Hands-on practical programming exercises will be included, with access to HPC provided for the duration of the course.
Trainer
Mark Bull
Mark teaches on EPCC's MSc in High Performance Computing and delivers many of our 'Shared-memory programming with OpenMP' and 'Single node optimisation' courses. He is EPCC's representative on the OpenMP standards body, and has been training computational scientists for over 20 years.
Format
This online course will run over four sessions on consecutive Wednesday afternoons, each running 14:00 - 16:30 with a half-hour break 15:00-15:30, starting on Wed 13th November with the last session on Wed 4th December.
We will be using Blackboard Collaborate for the course, which is very simple to use and entirely browser-based.
Collaborate usually works without problems with modern browsers, but Chrome is recommended. Links will appear below each session, further down this page.
Attendees will register for the course via the Prace page
Computing requirements
All attendees will need their own desktop or laptop with the following software installed:
- web browser - e.g. Firefox or Chrome
- pdf viewer - e.g. Firefox, Adobe Acrobat
and
- ssh client
- on Mac/Linux then Terminal is fine,
- on Windows we recommend MobaXterm which provides an SSH client, inbuilt text file editor and X11 graphpics viewer plus a bash shell envioronment. Although this is a bigger install, it is recommended (instead of putty and xming) if you will be accessing HPC machines regularly. There is a 'portable' version of MobaXterm which does not need admin install privilages.
- on Windows, if you are not using MobaXterm, you can use putty from https://www.putty.org/ - xming X11 graphics viewer,
- for Mac https://www.xquartz.org/,
- for Windows (if you are not using MobaXterm) http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/files/Xming/6.9.0.31/Xming-6-9-0-31-setup.exe/download
We have recorded an ARCHER Screencast: Logging on to ARCHER from Windows using PuTTY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVFQg1qFjKQ
Logging on to Cirrus is very similar, but substitute login.cirrus.ac.uk as the login address.
We will provide accounts on the Cirrus system for all attendees who register in advance at https://events.prace-ri.eu/event/903/.
Exercise Material
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
Short summaries of the OpenMP syntax are available from the OpenMP website:
Timetable
Each session runs 14:00 - 15:00 followed by half-hour break, and then 15:30 - 16:30Week 1 (Wed 13th November) : Shared Memory Concepts, OpenMP Fundamentals
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
Week 1 Video
Week 2 (Wed 20th November) : Parallel Regions, Work Sharing
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
Week 2 Video
Week 3 (Wed 27th Nov) : Synchronisation, Further Topics
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
Week 3 Video
Week 4 (Wed 4th Dec): Tips and Tricks, Performance
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
Week 4 Video
Material
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
All the slides etc. are linked in from the timetable above.
Support
Although it will be possible for attendees to follow the course sitting in their office, we want to explore ways to help them by providing a network of support from ARCHER Champions.
We are therefore looking for volunteers to give additional support during the practical sessions. This could take any of the following forms:
- arranging a room at your home institution where people can attend as a group and therefore get peer support for the exercises;
- hands-on support to attendees in the room, e.g. with logging on and running jobs, or providing OpenMP expertise if possible;
- being available for the days between the sessions to answer questions, either face-to-face or online.
A room with a large TV and a laptop with wifi access should be sufficient to host the course.
There will be OpenMP experts from EPCC available online throughout the course, but we were hoping to enable as many issues as possible to be dealt with locally.
Getting involved
If you are interested in supporting the course then please email d.henty@epcc.ed.ac.uk and I will add you to our mailing list.
Course Chat
There will be a Course Chat page
The Chat page is a live collaborative online document which we will use to share links, information and comments. All course participants are encouraged to contribute.
Registration
Please register via the PRACE Registration page
Questions?
If you have any questions please contact the ARCHER Helpdesk.
