Introduction to the ARCHER service

A one day introduction to the UK national supercomputer, ARCHER. The course is open to all regardless of background or prior knowledge.

Details

The ARCHER supercomputer, managed by EPSRC and operated by EPCC at the University of Edinburgh, is a 72,192 core Cray XC30 system. This course will give an overview of the hardware and software environment on ARCHER. Hands-on practical exercises will form an integral part of the course. Example codes will be supplied.

This course is free to all academics.

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of this course students should be able to:

  • Understand the ARCHER hardware environment.
  • Compile and run parallel programs on ARCHER.
  • Understand and exploit ARCHER-specific features of the MPI library.
  • Port applications to ARCHER.

Pre-requisites

There are no pre-requisites for this course.

Timetable

Details are subject to change, but start, end and break times will stay the same.

  • 09:30 LECTURE: ARCHER hardware
  • 10:30 PRACTICAL: Logging on, compiling and submitting jobs
  • 11:00 BREAK: Coffee
  • 11:30 LECTURE: Compiling for the ARCHER hardware
  • 12:15 PRACTICAL: Efficient compilation
  • 12:45 BREAK: Lunch
  • 14:00 LECTURE: ARCHER processors
  • 14:30 PRACTICAL: Using the Intel Ivy Bridge CPU
  • 15:00 LECTURE: Software environment and tools
  • 15:30 BREAK: Coffee
  • 16:00 PRACTICAL: ARCHER tools
  • 16:30 LECTURE: MPI on ARCHER
  • 17.00 LECTURE: Summary

Registration

Please use the registration page to register for ARCHER courses.

Course Materials

Slides and exercise material for this course are available here.

Questions?

If you have any questions please contact the ARCHER Helpdesk.