Advanced Research Computing @ Cardiff

Training

ARCCA provides a programme of events and training courses to help use the High Performance Computing (HPC) Cluster.

These courses are based around the ARCCA system but will also be applicable to research and code development performed on departmental clusters as well as desktop/laptop systems. Training ranges from introductory modules for users new to advanced research computing, through to more advanced topics such as code optimisation for more experienced users. 

The majority of the courses and workshops will be classroom taught with hands-on tutorials examples. 

If you think a specific course or workshop would be beneficial for a sub-group of your school or department (up to 10 people), please let us know and we will try to tailor the course to meet you requirements and run it at a convenient time within the school (subject to available facilities).

Course duration range from half-day (three hours) through to two days in length. Specific specialist courses will be run sequentially to form week-long workshops.

Further information

If you would like to discuss HPC training, please contact us.

To receive the latest information on advanced research computing events, please join our mailing list.

Also, if you wish to give us feedback on a recent event, or if you have ideas for future events, we'd be pleased to hear from you.

Training schedule

• Advanced Research Computing: An introduction
• Advanced Research Computing: An introduction to 'Raven', the new Super Computer

Advanced Research Computing: An introduction

Advanced Research Computing is a hugely powerful technique which is already enabling and transforming research in more than half of the schools across the University. These techniques use leading-edge IT resources and tools to pursue research, including computer simulation and modelling, manipulating and storing large amounts of data, and many other methods to solve research problems that would otherwise be impossible.

If your research has the potential to use these techniques, or even if you are curious to just find out more, this module will give a quick insight into what research computing means and how you can use it. It will also explain how Advanced Research Computing @ Cardiff (ARCCA) – could help you to do your computer-processing based research much more effectively.

Advanced Research Computing: An introduction to 'Raven', the new Super Computer 

Raven is Cardiff University's High Performance Computer, hosted and maintained by ARCCA. This half-day course provides an overview of the computer and explains how to use the system. It is a mix of presentation material and worked examples, which give users the chance to ask questions and run jobs in a controlled, friendly environment. 

By the end of the course, you should be able to access the Raven from a Windows PC, have a better understanding of the software environment (compilers, profilers and debugging tools available on the Machine), understand how to use the module environment (to load software) and be able to submit jobs to the system (PBS Pro job scheduler). This course will also provide an overview of some of the other courses provided which will enable users to improve the usage of advanced research computing facilities (both ARCCA facilities but also applicable to Linux clusters in general).

In addition to the dates listed, training for specific groups/Schools can be arranged by request (minimum 4 people) – please contact arcca@cardiff.ac.uk

Prerequisites:
- An account on Raven is required
- Knowledge of the Linux Command Line is required

There are complementary IT training programmes provided by partner Schools and Directorates within the University:

• IT training provided by Information Services
• Cardiff School of Computer Science and Informatics
• Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning

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