Summary and Schedule
This lesson teaches the basics of High-Performance Computing (HPC). The intended primary audience is digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs) who enable researchers to use HPC but do not necessarily need to use HPC in their own work. In creating this course, we especially had in mind research facilitators, research engagement professionals, and community managers. We expect that this lesson would also be of interest to reseachers who are interested in learning more about HPC but do not yet use it in their work. No prior knowledge or experience with HPC is required to engage with these materials.
The intended delivery format is in an instructor-led half-day workshop. Access to HPC resources is expected to be provided by a mini HPC cluster for training and demo purposes.
Sources and bibliography
We consulted a number of resources and training materials in designing and creating this lesson, which have shaped its structure and content. We are very grateful to the authors of these materials, both for creating them and for making them publicly available. Below is a list of those materials.
- HPC Carpentry. (n.d.). Using High-Performance Computing Systems. https://carpentries-incubator.github.io/hpc-intro/
- Richings, J., Farr, S., Farsarakis, M., Henty, D., & Filinger, W. (2023). Introduction to High Performance Computing. https://epcced.github.io/Intro-to-HPC/
- Sauze, C. (2019). Introduction to High Performance Computing with Raspberry Pi. https://scw-aberystwyth.github.io/Introduction-to-HPC-with-RaspberryPi
- Tavares, H., & Kalmár, L. (2024). Working on HPC Clusters using SLURM. https://cambiotraining.github.io/hpc-intro
This lesson built with The Carpentries Workbench.
| Setup Instructions | Download files required for the lesson | |
| Duration: 00h 00m | 1. Why use HPC? | What types of research problem would benefit from using a High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster? |
| Duration: 00h 40m | 2. What is HPC? |
How does a basic HPC cluster work? What does an HPC cluster look like? |
| Duration: 01h 22m | 3. What does an HPC workflow look like? |
What are the basic steps of an HPC workflow? How do workflows differ for different types of HPC? |
| Duration: 02h 02m | 4. How to use HPC resources responsibly |
What considerations are important for sharing resources with
others? What is the environmental impact of HPC? What steps can limit the environmental impact of HPC use? |
| Duration: 02h 42m | Finish |
The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.
Installations
You do not need to download any data or install any software to follow along with this lesson.