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ARCHER2 Weekly Newsletter

By ARCHER2 Service on March 12, 2025

Tags: newsletters 

Full ARCHER2 Maintenance: Wednesday 26th March 07:00 - 23:59 GMT

There will be a full ARCHER2 Maintenance session on Wednesday 26th March from 07:00 - 23:59 GMT. This is to allow the HPE team to update the operating system certificates. Users will not be able to connect to the login nodes, jobs will not run and users will be unable to access data during this maintenance session.

ARCHER2 Status Page

Exhibits and Engagement Activities for the ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2025

We are looking for exhibits and/or activities to participate in the ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2025 on the 14th - 15th May 2025 in Edinburgh at South Hall, The University of Edinburgh. These exhibits/activities will be in the main foyer area of the event and attendees will be able to engage with these throughout the event. These exhibits may for example showcase your outreach activities aimed at the general public or showcase dissemination activities for fellow professionals. These do not need to be on a large scale, our aim is to highlight a diverse range of activities.

If you are interested in showcasing your activities at the event please email events@archer2.ac.uk to discuss.

ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2025 - Poster Abstract Submission Due by Friday 21 March

Following the success of ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2024, we are pleased to announce that ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2025 will take place on the 14th - 15th May 2025 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 ARCHER2 researchers and other invited presenters involved in the ARCHER2 service, a poster session and a panel session.

The event is in-person and there is no registration fee.

We would like to invite the ARCHER2 community to submit posters for presentation at the ARCHER2 Celebration of Science 2025. Posters should demonstrate your work on ARCHER2, showcasing the science outcomes and impact achieved. Please complete the Poster Abstract Submission Form and email it to events@archer2.ac.uk by Friday 21st March 2025.

Full details and registration forms

Invitation to Data Interoperability Workshop

Hoping this finds you well. As one of the outcomes of the work done by the Data Working Group, we would like to invite you to the Data Interoperability Workshop that will be held on the 26th of March in Unique Venues Birmingham (The Birmingham Rep, B1 2SN), from 10:00  to 16:00. The workshop is being held in order to identify key opportunities and highlight priorities for UKRI action in promoting and building an interoperable research data infrastructure environment. We value the input of our diverse communities and believe that your experience will be a valuable addition to this project. If you are interested in attending, sign up   We would love to have you. Please feel free to share this information with anyone you think might be interested in the event.   Best regards, The DRI Team

SSI Research Software Maintenance Fund

The SSI is excited to formally announce a new funding initiative: the Research Software Maintenance Fund (RSMF) https://www.software.ac.uk/research-software-maintenance-fund . The fund provides £4.8 million to support existing research software, improve maintenance practices, and reduce technical debt—ensuring that essential tools remain accessible to the research community.  

Exploring Dataflow Architectures for Improved Efficiency in Earth System Models

CONTINENTS project webinar

The International Collaboration Towards Net Zero Computational Modelling and Simulation (CONTINENTS), is starting a webinar series that will run monthly. The first instance will be on Thursday, the 13th of March at 16:00 GMT, and will be delivered by Justs Zarins (EPCC), with the title: “Exploring Dataflow Architectures for Improved Efficiency in Earth System Models”, the abstract is available below. No registration needed, please feel free to re-share.

Abstract:

Earth system models are crucial for simulating environmental processes but demand significant computational resources and energy. In this presentation we will explore the potential of dataflow architectures to enhance both computational and energy efficiency of ESMs. We will primarily discuss the Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine, examining its capabilities and evaluating its suitability for the shallow water equation.

Event link

The Science behind the Image Competition - 2

Wednesday 19th March 15:00 - 16:00 In the webinar, Dr Andrew Mole (Imperial College London) and Dr Sébastien Lemaire (EPCC) will talk about the science, data processing and visualisation behind the video “Effects of “wake steering” on wind turbine flows”.

More details and join link

Software Carpentry

Online, 17 - 21 March 2025 09:30 - 13:00 GMT

Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including:

  • Program design (Python)
  • Version control with Git
  • The Unix Shell

Full details and registration

Introduction to Modern Fortran

Imperial College London, 24 - 25 March 2025 09:30 - 16:30 GMT

This course is aimed at users and developers who know how to program, but have little or no experience in Fortran, and those who may wish to have a refresher in Fortran.

Fortran (a contraction of Formula Translation) was the first programming language to have a standard (in 1954), but has changed significantly over the years. More recent standards (the latest being Fortran 2023) come under the umbrella term “Modern Fortran”. Fortran retains very great significance in many areas of scientific and numerical computing, particularly for applications such as quantum chemistry, plasmas, and in numerical weather prediction and climate models.

This course provides an introduction to the basics of writing Fortran. It will cover basic syntax, variables, expressions and assignments, flow of control, and introductions to i/o and user-defined types. Common Fortran idioms are introduced and contrasted with those available in C-like languages; the course will try to focus on real usage rather than formal descriptions.

At the end of the course you should be able to understand many Fortran programs and be confident to start to write well-structured and portable Fortran. Fortran is a rather “large” language, so it is not possible to cover all its features in a two day course. Further elements of Fortran are discussed in the “Intermediate Modern Fortran” course. Prerequisites:

Attendees must be familiar with the basic concepts of programming: variables, logic, flow of control, loops, functions and so on. No knowledge of Fortran is assumed. Previous programming experience might typically be in the context C/C++ or python. If you know no programming, we suggest this course on Fortran is not the place to start.

The course requires a Fortran compiler, for which a local machine or laptop may be appropriate [1]. If you do not have access to a Fortran compiler, course training accounts on ARCHER2 will be available which provide access to various compilers. Use of a text editor will be required (some may prefer an IDE, but we do not intend to consider or support IDEs).

[1] This may typically be gfortran, freely available as part of Gnu Compiler Collection (GCC). See e.g., https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GFortranBinaries

Full details and registration

AMD MI300 Series Hackathon : Registration deadline 31 March 2025

Edinburgh, 27 - 29 May 2025 10:00 - 16:00 BST

ARCHER2 and AMD are hosting a three-day in-person hackathon to explore the potential of AMD GPUs for research. The event will focus on porting and optimizing code using the latest AMD development suite. This event is ideal for both expert practitioners and less experienced users who want to convert CPU-focused codes into efficient GPU-ready applications, and enhance the performance of current GPU-based codes using AMD’s next-gen MI300x GPU cards or the new MI300A APU superchip.

We’re looking for teams of 2-5 members. Participants will work with AMD experts and have access to AMD resources. In-house experts from the ARCHER2 team are also on hand.

Deadline for applications is on 31st March 2025. Full details and registration Limited spaces: Applications will be reviewed as received, so early submission increases your chances.

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