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ARCHER2 Weekly Newsletter

By ARCHER2 Service on September 9, 2026

Tags: newsletters 

Running GeoChemFoam on HPC: From Micro-CT Images to Remote Visualisation

Free webinar, Wednesday 16th September 2026 14:00 - 15:30 - note the earlier-than-usual start time.

GeoChemFoam is an open-source OpenFOAM-based computational platform for simulating flow and reactive transport in porous media, with particular applications to pore-scale modelling and digital rock physics. This webinar will provide a practical introduction to running GeoChemFoam on High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities.

Using ARCHER2 as a demonstration platform, we will show the complete workflow for setting up and running a GeoChemFoam simulation on HPC. This will include installing and configuring GeoChemFoam, preparing and running a flow simulation directly on a 3D micro-CT image of a porous material, and processing and visualising the simulation results remotely using ParaView.

Although the demonstrations will be carried out on ARCHER2, the workflow and principles presented are broadly applicable to other HPC systems, including facilities such as Cirrus. The webinar is intended for researchers interested in using HPC for pore-scale flow and reactive transport simulations, and no previous experience with GeoChemFoam is required.

Full details and join link

Data Analysis and Visualisation in Python

Online, 28 - 29 September 2026 09:30 - 16:30

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.

Full details and registration

Green software use on HPC

University of Cambridge, 2 October 2026 10:00 - 15:30

This lesson introduces environmental sustainability principles in the context of high performance computing (HPC) systems. Understanding the scale of emissions from different sources is critical to being able to make changes to work in a more environmentally sustainable way. This lesson will give you the ability to understand emissions arising from use of HPC system and how to quantify them. We will use practical examples and real data from an existing HPC facility to illustrate the concepts. By the end of this lesson you should:

  • Be able to understand the concept of carbon efficiency and how it relates to energy efficiency including cases where energy efficiency can be at odds with carbon efficiency
  • Know about how HPC systems potentially reduce emissions
  • Understand carbon intensity of electricity generation and the implications for carbon aware use of HPC
  • Appreciate the embodied emissions associated with HPC hardware and how they impact carbon aware use of HPC
  • Be aware of the frameworks used to measure and report on carbon emissions and how the terms used in these frameworks map onto HPC
  • Gain practical advice on how you can measure and improve the carbon efficiency of your use of HPC

Full details and registration

Containers for Reproducible Research: Introduction to Podman and Apptainer

Imperial College London, 7 October 2026 09:30 - 16:00

This course aims to introduce the use of containers with the goal of using them to effect reproducible computational environments. Such environments are useful for ensuring reproducible research outputs and for simplifying the setup of complex software dependencies across different systems. The course will introduce the use of Podman and Apptainer containers but the material will be of use for whatever container technology you plan to, or end up, using. On completion of this course attendees should:

  • Have an understanding of what Podman/Apptainer containers are, why they are useful and the common terminology used
  • Have a working Podman installation on your local system to allow you to use containers
  • Understand how to use existing container images for common tasks
  • Be able to build your own Podman/Apptainer container images by understanding both the role of a Contianerfile recipe in building container images, and the syntax used in Contianerfiles
  • Understand how to manage Podman/Apptainer containers on your local system
  • Appreciate decisions that need to be made around containerising research workflows
  • Understand the differences between Podman and Apptainer containers and why Apptainer is often more suitable for multi-user systems (e.g. HPC)
  • Appreciate issues around reproducibility in software, understand how containers can address some of these issues and what the limits to reproducibility using containers are

Full details and registration

Modern C++ for Computational Scientists

Online, 14 - 16 October 2026 09:30 - 16:30

With the recent revisions to the C++ language and standard library, the ways it is now being used are quite different. Used well, these features enable the programmer to write elegant, reusable and portable code that runs efficiently on a variety of architectures.

However it is still a very large and complex tool. This course will cover a minimal set of features to allow an experienced non-C++ programmer to get to grips with language.

These include:

  • overloading
  • templates
  • containers
  • iterators
  • lambdas
  • standard algorithms

We will also briefly cover some important libraries for numerical computing.

Full details and registration

ARCHER2 Capability Days: 15-17 Sep 2026

The next ARCHER2 Capability Days session will run from 15-17 Sep 2026. ARCHER2 Capability Days are a mechanism to allow users to run large scale tests on the system free of charge. The motivations behind Capability Days are:

  • Enhancing world-leading science from ARCHER2 by enabling modelling and simulation at scales that are not otherwise possible.
  • Enabling capability use cases that are not possible on other UK HPC services.
  • Providing a facility that can be used to test scaling to help prepare software and communities for future large-scale resources.

Capability Days are made up of two parts:

  • 0900-1900 BST, 15 Sep 2026 - pre-Capability Days session (“pre-capabilityday” QoS) to allow users to test scaling and job setup ahead of full Capability Day
    • Supports jobs 256-1024 nodes, 1 hour maximum run time
    • Jobs are uncharged
  • 0800 BST, 16 Sep - 1400 BST, 17 Sep 2026 - Capability Days session (“capabilityday” QoS)
    • Supports jobs 512-4096 nodes, 2 hours maximum run time
    • Jobs are uncharged

More information on Capability Days and how to submit jobs can be found on the ARCHER2 documentation

ARCHER2 Image and Video competition 2026

Share your images and videos to support excellence and promote the contribution of ARCHER2 to outstanding research. The winner of the competition will be awarded £250.

The winning image or video, along with a selection of other entries, will also be featured on the ARCHER2 website and in EPCC and ARCHER2 publications. Credit will be given to the entrant in all cases. Key Details

  • Competition Opens: 28 July 2026
  • Submission Deadline: Extended to 20th September 2026
  • Judging: September/October 2026
  • Prizes:
    • Best image : £150
    • Best video : £150
    • Best early career researcher submission : £150
    • Overall winner, selected from the above three winners : additional £100

The ARCHER2 Image and Video Competition is an event for all users of ARCHER2 to share their images or videos of “ARCHER2 Enabling Research”

Full details and entry forms

ARCHER2 end of service: 17:00 GMT Friday 20th November 2026

To help users, we have compiled a set of documentation specifically covering the end of the ARCHER2 service

The documentation covers:

  • Timeline for the end of the ARCHER2 service
  • Data on ARCHER2: what do I need to do to save data I have stored on ARCHER2 file systems?
  • EPCC SAFE: what happens to my personal data in SAFE?
  • HPC access beyond ARCHER2

Key impacts for ARCHER2 users:

  • Data on home, work, solid state scratch file systems will not be accessible beyond the end of the ARCHER2 service
  • RDFaaS will continue beyond the lifetime of ARCHER2 but users will need to transfer data from /epsrc and /general to a different local mount point on ARCHER2 - more details will be provided as soon as they are available
  • No login access will be available beyond the end of the ARCHER2 service

If you have questions about the end of service that are not answered by the documentation, then please contact the ARCHER2 service desk

ARCHER2 User Survey 2026

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 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

Survey closes 30th September 2026

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, and will be shared with UKRI for consideration in planning future services.

Forge license boost

The Forge license will be increased from 16 nodes to 64 nodes for one week beginning 14th September. Details of DDT and MAP

PowerSched trial

The planned PowerSched trial, during 3rd–10th September, had to be postponed at short notice. We will confirm a new time for the trial in due course.

Understanding EDI in the UK DRI+ Community:

The CAKE-CoSeC EDI Working Group is running a short survey to understand experiences, priorities and challenges around equality, diversity and inclusion across the UK DRI+ community. The survey takes around 15–20 minutes, and responses will help shape the group’s priorities and future work.

Take the survey

Deadline: 7 October at 23:45 BST

Please share with colleagues or networks who may be interested

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