ARCHER2 Weekly Newsletter


Containers in HPC

Online webinar, Tuesday 30th March 2021 15:00 - 16:00 BST

Containers have become popular for HPC applications, creating the possibility of packing entire scientific workflows, software, libraries, and even data, thus solving the problem of making software run reliably when moved from one computing environment to another. Several optimized technologies have been specifically developed for HPC systems, such as Charliecloud, Sarus, and Singularity. Despite the main portability goal, the challenge for HPC applications is to achieve performance portability. We will discuss the challenges and present some solutions for addressing them with a focus on Singularity.

This online session is open to all. It will use the Blackboard Collaborate platform.

Further details and join link: https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/#upcoming-training

Quantum Computing Without A Quantum Computer

Online webinar, Wednesday 31st March 2021 15:00 - 16:00 BST

Quantum computers offer the exciting prospect of one day tackling problems that are intractable on classical computers, but what do you do if you don’t actually have one? Dr Oliver Thomson Brown gives a (very) brief intro to quantum computing, and shows how ARCHER2 is enabling researchers to study quantum algorithms so that when we do have access to quantum computers, we’ll have something to run on them.

This online session is open to all. It will use the Blackboard Collaborate platform.

Further details and join link: https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/#upcoming-training

ARCHER2 Charging of Jobs

As users have now had a chance to evaluate the 4-cabinet system and to help improve user experience, we will also be introducing charging of jobs against budgets from 1 April 2021. Ahead of this time, project budgets will be transferred over from ARCHER, converted to ARCHER2 CU (for those projects continuing), and new budgets will be created for new projects on ARCHER2. The conversion rate for ARCHER kAU to ARCHER2 CU is 1 ARCHER2 CU = 1.5156 ARCHER kAU. In identifying these conversion rates UKRI has endeavoured to ensure that no user will be disadvantaged by the transfer of their allocation from ARCHER to ARCHER2.

Access to HPC call open

The Access to High Performance Computing Call, through which EPSRC users can access the council’s new and upcoming Tier-1 and Tier-2 resources has now gone live: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/access-to-high-performance-computing/

https://www.archer2.ac.uk/support-access/access.html

This call is the successor to the ARCHER RAP and Tier-2 Open Access calls processes, through which users were previously able to access each of EPSRC’s HPC resources.

Closing date: 30 April 2021 16:00 Closing date for Technial assessment: 2 April 2021

HPC TopUp call open

The HPC TopUp Call, through which existing EPSRC users with an existing ARCHER2 allocation who require additional resource can apply.

https://www.archer2.ac.uk/support-access/access.html#open-archer2-calls

  • Closing date 21 May 2021 16:00
  • Closing date for Technical assessment: 30 April 2021 16:00

Introduction to ARCHER2 for software developers

Online, 29 - 30 March 2021 10:00 - 16:00 BST

Overview:

  • What hardware is available on ARCHER2?
    • What does they consist of (login nodes, compute nodes, file systems, backup)?
    • How does this impact me as a user?
  • How can I access ARCHER2 interactively and transfer data?
  • What does the ARCHER2 application development environment look like and how do I use it?
  • How do I write job submission scripts and submit them to the ARCHER2 scheduler?
  • How can I be a good ARCHER2 citizen?
  • How can I check what resources I am using and look at historical usage?

Target Audience:

This lesson provides an introduction to using ARCHER2 for user who:

  • have already used other HPC systems; and
  • want to compile (and possibly) develop HPC software on ARCHER2.

Further details https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/#upcoming-training

Other upcoming ARCHER2 Training

  • Introduction to ARCHER2 for software developers, Online, 29 - 30 March 2021 10:00 - 16:00 BST
  • Containers in HPC, Online webinar, Tuesday 30th March 2021 15:00 - 16:00 BST
  • Quantum Computing Without A Quantum Computer, Online webinar, Wednesday 31st March 2021 15:00 - 16:00 BST
  • Shared Memory Programming with OpenMP, Online, a new always-open self-service course

Further details https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/#upcoming-training

New virtual tutorials will be announced soon via: ARCHER2 website: https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/#upcoming-training

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARCHER2_HPC

Recordings of past virtual tutorials can be found here: https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/materials/