SIGHPC Education Blog – Blog and Discussion area for SIGHPC Education Members

The OpenHPC2.x Virtual Lab – a hands-on reflection.

written by Sayfullah Jumoorty

I recently had the opportunity to complete the OpenHPC 2.x Hands-On Lab (Virtual Lab 10), presented by the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), and it was an invaluable experience.

The lab focused on deploying and managing a High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster using the OpenHPC software stack, including Warewulf, Slurm, and RockyLinux8. Over the course of the lab, I set up management nodes, configured compute nodes, and ran jobs in a virtual environment, all while troubleshooting and optimizing the cluster’s performance.

“One of the highlights of the lab was its practical, step-by-step approach, which made complex HPC concepts more accessible.”

As a student at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), I’ve been actively involved in HPC through local competitions in South Africa and had the privilege of representing my team at the ISC 2023 Student Cluster Competition in Hamburg.

The hands-on experience from this OpenHPC lab directly complemented the skills I developed in those competitions, allowing me to deepen my understanding of real-world cluster deployment and system administration.

One of the highlights of the lab was its practical, step-by-step approach, which made complex HPC concepts more accessible. The opportunity to get hands-on with a virtual cluster environment was both challenging and rewarding.

For anyone interested in HPC, whether you’re an experienced system administrator or a newcomer like me, I highly recommend this lab as a learning experience.

I’m excited to stay connected with the HPC community and look forward to further contributing as I continue my journey in this field! -Sayfullah Jumoorty (sayfullah.jumoorty[at]live[dot]com)

The OpenHPC2.x Virtual Lab is designed to provide an offline locally-hosted learning environment to explore the deployment (and use of) a 3-node virtual cluster. To find out more about the OpenHPC 2.x Virtual Lab:

JOCSE paper: Let’s Get Our Heads Out of the Clouds: here.
OpenHPC 2.x online guide: OpenHPC 2.x Guide.
Community Website: https://ecosystems.nicis.ac.za/
E-mail: hpc-ecosystems[at]csir[dot]co[dot]za.

Teach the Teacher at SC22

written by Dhruva Chakravorty

On November 12, 2022 at the Supercomputing 22 conference at Kay Bailey Hutchison Conference Center in Dallas, Texas, HPRC, in partnership with Edward J Evans, Associate Vice President for Enterprise IT Operations at Texas A&M University, conducted a teacher hands-on symposium. Sixteen teachers registered for the event. These teachers represented career and technical education, computer science, technology applications, health science, and business technology from middle schools and high schools in Texas. There were eleven attendees.

HPC Education & Training Materials Survey Highlights Interest in Sharing Materials More Widely

written by Kate Cahill

The utilization of computing technologies is rapidly expanding in many sectors, necessitating access to high-quality education and training materials to facilitate research computing. The demand for instructional materials, encompassing a wide range of topics related to the development and application of research computing technologies across disciplines, is crucial for both formal classroom settings, informal training, and self-paced learning.

One way to meet this need and keep up with the ever-evolving landscape of HPC educational and training material development is to improve how the community shares and finds materials.

SC22 Mini-series: Early Career Program and its Past Participants

This blog entry was reposted from the RSE stories and combines two posts.

Marina Kraeva is a Senior Research Computing Systems Analyst at Iowa State University and this year’s Early Career Program Subcommittee Chair. In this episode, Marina tells us about the history of the Early Career Program (ECP) at Supercomputing, the overarching goals of ECP, and what potential participants can expect to learn this year!

She encourages all professionals in their early career to apply for the program this year, taking place in Dallas, TX, as part of Supercomputing 2022. To apply, go to the Early Career Program page and click “Application Details.”

WHPC RETURNS TO INTERNATIONAL IN-PERSON EVENTS AT ISC22 IN HAMBURG, GERMANY

Entry re-posted from the WHPC blog.

Members, allies and friends gathered together for the 13th Annual WHPC Workshop at ISC, as well as celebrated Early Career Research in HPC and the return of Diversity Day.

After two years online, the volunteers for Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) were pleased to return in-person to ISC22 in Hamburg, Germany to present their thirteenth annual international workshop. Focused on providing a platform for the HPC community to discuss diversity and inclusivity issues, this year’s half day event was able to explore professional skills development, highlight women who are early in their careers of research, and engage with leaders and managers in the HPC to improve the inclusion and retention of diverse teams.