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ARCHER2 Weekly Newsletter

By ARCHER2 Service on January 31, 2024

Tags: newsletters 

ARCHER2 GPUs webinar

online, 31st January 2024 14:00 - 16:00 GMT TODAY

This user webinar will discuss the new GPU nodes and will have EPCC and HPE staff available to answer questions

This online session is open to all.

Details and join link:

GPU eCSE software development call and associated Early Career Observer call

GPU eCSE call

The first call of a new programme of eCSE calls focussing on GPU-based software development is now open. We invite proposals to develop software that facilitates research targeted at UKRI’s digital research infrastructure e.g. future Exascale supercomputing services, UK national AI services, national Tier-2 HPC services. The call is open to research across all of UKRI’s remit.

The first GPU eCSE call (GPU-eCSE01) opened on the 17 Jan 2024. The final deadline for proposal submission is 16:00 on 19 Mar 2024 via the ARCHER2 SAFE. Please note that for this call there is no separate technical evaluation stage or separate technical evaluation form.

Funding will enable the employment of an RSE (a Research Software Engineer, PDRA or equivalent) to work specifically on the relevant software to enable new features or improve the performance of the software to be run on GPU-based architectures. Funding can be requested for up to 36 person months of effort per project for a duration of up to 2 calendar years. There is flexibility in the way the effort is requested. For example, a project may have more than one person working on it or the effort could be spread over a greater number of calendar months, i.e. a staff member could work on the project at less than 100% alongside other commitments or it could be worked on by a staff member who doesn’t work full time. Please just get in contact with the ARCHER2 Service Desk if you wish to discuss possible scenarios. Projects are expected to start between 2-6 months after a call closes. Funding can be requested for staff located at the institution of the PI, third parties, or can include staff from the ARCHER2 centralised CSE support team at EPCC or a mixture of the above.

Projects may utilise the GPU component of ARCHER2 or other suitable GPU resources to complete the technical work. If the proposal plans to use the GPU component of ARCHER2, successful projects will be given access to these resources. If projects plan to utilise other systems, you should ensure you have suitable resources available to complete the project successfully. Please contact and arrange this access with the relevant service provider before submission.

More details of how to apply are available by following the link to the eCSE calls page

Early Career Observer call

The eCSE Panel Meeting is the meeting where eCSE proposals are reviewed and decisions are made on which proposals to fund. As part of our commitment to encouraging and developing Early Career Researchers, we are offering a small number of places to such researchers to attend the eCSE panel meeting as Early Career Observers. The aim is to give Early Career Researchers a better insight into this competitive selection process, to assist them in the preparation of future funding proposals.

The deadline for applying to attend the panel meeting as an observer is 16:00 on 27 Feb 2024 via the ARCHER2 service desk. Details of the call

An insight into the experience from one of our recent Early Career Panel Observers

eCSE and observer call dates

Deadline for final GPU eCSE submission: 16:00 on 19 Mar 2024 (via the ARCHER2 SAFE)

Deadline for Early Career eCSE Panel Observers call: 16:00 on 27 Feb 2024 (via the ARCHER2 service desk)

ARCHER2 GPU eCSE software development call webinar

Online, 8th February 2024 15:00 - 16:00 GMT

There is presently a GPU eCSE software development call open as detailed below. This webinar will provide an overview of the GPU eCSE programme and will describe the submission process including all the technical and logistical aspects of putting together a proposal. There will be the opportunity to ask questions about any aspect of the programme.

This online session is open to all.

Full details and join link

Solid State File System (NVMe)

As you may be aware, your ARCHER2 project has access to the solid state NVMe file system. The solid state (NVMe) file system now has a /scratch usage policy.

All files that have not been accessed in the last 28 days will be purged. This implementation starts on 28th Feb 2024, i.e. any files not accessed since 1st Feb 2024 will be purged on 28th Feb 2024.

You can identify which files you own that are candidates to be purged using the following find command:
find /mnt/lustre/a2fs-nvme/work/<project code> -atime +28 -type f -print

For example, if your account is in project t01, you would use:
find /mnt/lustre/a2fs-nvme/work/t01 -atime +28 -type f -print

Further details for the NVMe file system can be found in the docs

If you would like access to the NVMe file system, please contact the Service Desk

RDFaaS : /epsrc and /general file systems

Full Maintenance: Wed 7th Feb 0900 - Thurs 8th Feb 1700

There will be a full maintenance to the E1000 to allow software updates to take place. This means that the /epsrc and /general file systems will be unavailable during this time and users will be unable to access data stored on these file systems.

Please contact the service desk if you have concerns regarding this work.

ARCHER2 Celebration of Science

We are pleased to announce the ARCHER2 Celebration of Science will take place on the 7th – 8th March 2024 in Edinburgh at South Hall, The University of Edinburgh.

The event will provide ARCHER2 users with the opportunity to showcase their science achievements on ARCHER2. The two-day programme will include a variety of talks from members of the ARCHER2 research consortia and other invited presenters involved in the ARCHER2 service, a poster session and a panel session focusing on preparing the UK science community for future Exascale systems. All attendees are welcome to join the drink reception on the evening of the first day.

The event is in-person and there is no registration fee. The registration deadline is 29th February 2024.

Full details and registration:

ARCHER2 User Survey 2023

We are committed to continually improving the ARCHER2 Service and would like to request your input to help us understand what is important to you, where the Service is working well and where there is scope for improvement.

The ARCHER2 Annual User Survey consists of just a few questions and should take only a few minutes of your time to complete. There are opportunities to add more detailed comments if you wish.

For each survey response received, we will donate £1 to Save The Children.
Additionally, if you enter your ARCHER2 username in the final question, then you will be entered into the prize draw to win one of five £50 Amazon vouchers.

Complete the survey

Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete this survey. The responses will be used to try and improve the service for you and to help identify key areas for service development.

The survey will close on Wednesday 31st January 2024 so please ensure you have completed it before then.

Data Analysis and Visualisation in Python

Online, 7 - 8 February 2024 09:30 - 17:00 GMT

Python is a general purpose programming language that is useful for writing scripts to work effectively and reproducibly with data.

This is an introduction to Python designed for participants with no programming experience. This course covers:

  • Some basic information about Python syntax.
  • The Jupyter notebook interface.
  • How to import CSV files.
  • Using the Pandas package to work with data frames.
  • How to calculate summary information from a data frame.
  • Brief introduction to plotting.
  • How to work with databases directly from Python.

Further details and registration

Data Carpentry

Online, 12 - 15 February 2024 09:30 - 13:00 GMT

Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners’ existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

This workshop uses a tabular ecology dataset from the Portal Project Teaching Database and teaches data cleaning, management, analysis, and visualization. There are no pre-requisites, and the materials assume no prior knowledge about the tools. We use a single dataset throughout the workshop to model the data management and analysis workflow that a researcher would use.

  • Data Organization in Spreadsheets: Learn how to organize tabular data, handle date formatting, carry out quality control and quality assurance and export data to use with downstream applications.
  • Data Cleaning with OpenRefine: Explore, summarize, and clean tabular data reproducibly.
  • Data Analysis and Visualization in R: Import data into R, calculate summary statistics, and create publication-quality graphics.
  • Data Management with SQL: Structure data for database import. Query data within a relational database.

Further details and registration

Recently added known issues

The “Known Issues” page of the ARCHER2 Documentation https://docs.archer2.ac.uk/known-issues/ lists all current open known issues including a description of the issue, its symptoms and any work-arounds.

  • No recent issues

Upcoming ARCHER2 Training

Further details of upcoming training

We always welcome researchers wishing to present their work in a webinar - please contact the Service Desk if you would be interested in presenting your work.

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Recordings of past courses

Recordings of past virtual tutorials