HPC Winter School 2017

3 Jul 2017, 08:00 → 8 Jul 2017, 18:00 Africa/Johannesburg

Engineering building (Stellenbosch University)

High Performance Computing School 2017

A funded six-day graduate course for South African students who wish to advance their expertise in high performance computing (HPC) and related research topics which would potentially rely on HPC techniques.

3 – 8 July 2017

Stellenbosch

Hosted by Stellenbosch University (SU) and the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST)

The CHPC invites applications from suitably qualified candidates to attend the above HPC school. Its purpose is to introduce South African students to fundamental knowledge of high performance computing techniques. The HPC School is aimed at recent B.Sc. (Hons) or B.Eng. graduates, and new M.Sc or Ph.D. students in the fields of computational chemistry, applied mathematics, physics, computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science, engineering or related subjects with a strong computing content.

The course will cover the concepts and theory of parallel computers, and programming for parallel systems with MPI and OpenMP, and possibly CUDA or other co-processors, using the C, Fortran or python programming languages.

Students need to have second year mathematics or applied mathematics (or equivalent) and programming experience in a high level language: C, Fortran or python. Students who have a strong background in numerical methods and GNU Octave, Scilab or Matlab (or other programming, e.g., Basic, Java) may also qualify.

The HPC School will run from monday 3 July to Saturday 8 July 2017.

There are no fees for successful applicants.

The CHPC will cover the costs of accommodation during the HPC School as well as local return air/bus travel for students from outside the Western Cape as needed.

Eligible applicants should be registered at a South African University in 2017 or be accepted for graduate study at a South African university in 2018 ― proof of registration or acceptance must be provided ― including a letter of recommendation from your supervisor.

Course content will assume a reasonable background in Mathematics (at least including multivariate calculus and linear algebra) and programming ability in a high level language (C, Fortran, python, or similar) as well as 2nd year in at least one of Physics, Applied Maths, Maths, Computer Science, Statistics, or Engineering. A full academic transcript must be included with your application.

No prior background in HPC will be assumed. Interactive lectures and computer tutorials will introduce the students to a range of key aspects of HPC and further illustrate how these tools are currently being applied to address research problems.

Outline of syllabus:

• Introduction to HPC Architectures, Parallel Programming Overview and Models.
• Cluster Environment Set-up; Compilers, Shell Scripting and Job Submission.
• Introduction to Programming Shared Memory Multicore & SMP Systems with OpenMP.
• Parallel Programming Distributed Memory Systems with MPI; Introduction and Fundamentals.
• Advanced Parallel Programming with MPI; Topologies and Parallel I/O.
• Introduction to Co-Processors to Accelerate HPC: Xeon Phi and GPUs. (May not be offered.)
• Evaluation: test and/or mini-project.

Transport, accommodation, and full board will be provided. Owing to budgetary constraints, only limited places are available for suitably qualified students.

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

Should you wish to become one of the participants, please complete the following application form and register online before the closing date. Successful candidates will be notified from 5 June 2016.

The CHPC calls for all talented students to submit their applications. As a publicly funded institution, the CHPC supports the transformation of South Africa and thus the workshop organisers highly encourage students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds to submit their applications. For general enquiries please email workshop@chpc.ac.za or see the website at wiki.chpc.ac.za/workshops:hpcschool

Monday, 3 July

08:00 → 09:00 Registration

10:30 → 11:00 Break

12:30 → 13:30 Lunch

15:00 → 15:30 Break