Call for presentations and participation: hpc-ch Forum on Access Abstraction to HPC Resources – Hybrid Event

DATE AND LOCATION

hpc-ch forum on Access Abstraction to HPC Resources
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Empa
Room Akademie I
Überlandstrasse 129
8600 Dübendorf

FORUM DETAILS

Description
For HPC centers it is essential to simplify the access to the computational resources for their user  communities. Personal computing did already introduce in the eighties of last century the concept of desktop computing to simplify the utilization by the users. At the same time we moved from mainframes to client-server architectures up to micro-services. Unfortunately supercomputers are still (mostly) used by manually submitting jobs in queues. Some scientific communities did already work on such challenges and created web portals able to support complex workflow hiding from the end users details related to the HPC infrastructure. More and more scientists will be involved in the next few years in building such platforms. For us it is getting more and more important to support those portals and offer new ways to use the computational and storage resources we manage. It shall be possible to use the supercomputers interactively or through defined programmatic interfaces (API) to cover from simple use cases up to complex workflows. This also includes access to data management tools to stage in (and out) everything that’s needed to run the simulation or analysis.

Key Questions

• Scientific portals: What kind of scientific portals do exist today? What will be the future developments? What are their requirements respect to the HPC providers?
• Interactive computing platforms: How can I easily run a calculation/analysis that requires some degree of interaction on a bigger and more powerful machine? Can I use an HPC resource as if it was my laptop?
• Efficient management of data: Are there any optimal tools to manage data efficiently? E.g., avoiding copying non-essential info when moving data, or saving data for archiving purposes  Can I synchronize files between my computer, my home institution and my HPC resource without having to use too many different tools? Without having to monitor failures manually?
• Computational resources abstraction: As a HPC provider, how can we build a “middle layer” allowing our scientific computing users to see the resources we are providing in a uniform way? (keywords: workflow, API, RESTful interfaces).

Call for Presentations

Member presentations are essential for our forums!
If you are willing to contribute with a short presentation (30 min including Q & A), please inform Raluca Hodoroaba, by indicating the title and giving a short abstract of your presentation.

Program

Please note the full program will be available towards mid October. You can access the preliminary program by clicking here. Meeting material will be uploaded on the forum webpage after the event. The program will also include a site visit to the Automotive Powertrains Technologies Laboratory and to the Acoustics and Noise Control Laboratory.

Registration

The forum will be held both on-site and virtually.

This setting will offer attendees the opportunity to enjoy the on-site experience, while other participants can tune-in via livestream.

To confirm your attendance (either on-site or online), please submit the registration form no later than Sunday, October 11, 2020. Click here to register now.

On-site
Due to COVID-19-related safety restrictions, the maximum capacity of the conference room is 40 people.

Online
Information on how to follow the livestreaming event will be provided to participants.