Using non-volatile Memory
ARCHER, the UK's national supercomputing service offers training in software development and high-performance computing to scientists and researchers across the UK.
ARCHER courses are offered free of charge to all academics.
Details
Persistent memory, such as Intel's Optane DCPMM, is now available for use in systems and will be included in future exascale deployments such as the DoE Aurora system. This new form of memory requires both different programming approaches to exploit the persistent functionality and storage performance and redesign of applications to benefit from the full performance of the hardware.
This online course aims to educate participants on the persistent memory hardware currently available, the software methods to exploit such hardware, and the choices that users of systems and system designers have when deciding what persistent memory functionality and configurations to utilize.
The course will provide hands-on experience on programming persistent memory along with a wealth of information on the hardware and software ecosystem and potential performance and functionality benefits. We will be using an HPC system that has compute nodes with Optane memory for the tutorial practicals.
Trainer
Adrian Jackson
Adrian Jackson is a Research Architect at EPCC, where he works on a range of different research, from investigating new memory hardware and programming models, to optimising and porting parallel codes, and working with application scientists to enable their computational simulation or data analysis. He also teaches on EPCC's MSc in HPC, giving lectures on Programming Skills, HPC Architecture, and Performance Programming.
Format
This online course will run over two sessions on consecutive Wednesday afternoons, each running 14:00 - 16:30 UTC (15:00 - 17:30 CET) with a half-hour break 15:00-15:30 UTC (16:00 - 16:30 CET), starting on Wed 15th January and ending on Wed 22nd January 2020.
We will be using Blackboard Collaborate for the course, which is very simple to use and entirely browser-based.
Collaborate usually works without problems with modern browsers, but Chrome is recommended. Links will appear below each session, further down this page.
Attendees will register for the course via the Prace page
Computing requirements
All attendees will need their own desktop or laptop with the following software installed:
- web browser - e.g. Firefox or Chrome
- pdf viewer - e.g. Firefox, Adobe Acrobat
and
- ssh client
- on Mac/Linux then Terminal is fine,
- on Windows we recommend MobaXterm which provides an SSH client, inbuilt text file editor and X11 graphpics viewer plus a bash shell envioronment. Although this is a bigger install, it is recommended (instead of putty and xming) if you will be accessing HPC machines regularly. There is a 'portable' version of MobaXterm which does not need admin install privilages.
- on Windows, if you are not using MobaXterm, you can use putty from https://www.putty.org/ - xming X11 graphics viewer,
- for Mac https://www.xquartz.org/,
- for Windows (if you are not using MobaXterm) http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/files/Xming/6.9.0.31/Xming-6-9-0-31-setup.exe/download
We have recorded an ARCHER Screencast: Logging on to ARCHER from Windows using PuTTY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVFQg1qFjKQ
Logging on to the NEXTGenIO prototype system is very similar, but substitute hydra-vpn.epcc.ed.ac.uk as the login address, followed by nextgenio-login1.
We will provide accounts on the NEXTGenIO system for all attendees who register in advance at https://events.prace-ri.eu/event/949/.
Exercise Material
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
- to follow
Timetable
Each session runs 14:00 - 15:00 followed by half-hour break, and then 15:30 - 16:30Week 1 (Wed 15th January) : Details to follow
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
- Introduction
- Hardware, I/O and storage
- Low-level persistent memory programming
- Persistent thinking
- Exercise sheet
Week 1 Video
Week 2 (Wed 22nd January) : Details to follow
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
- Recap
- Higher-level persistent memory programming
- Other approaches
- Summary
Week 2 Video
Material
Unless otherwise indicated all material is Copyright © EPCC, The University of Edinburgh, and is only made available for private study.
All the slides etc. are linked in from the timetable above.
Support
Although it will be possible for attendees to follow the course sitting in their office, we want to explore ways to help them by providing a network of support from ARCHER Champions.
We are therefore looking for volunteers to give additional support during the practical sessions. This could take any of the following forms:
- arranging a room at your home institution where people can attend as a group and therefore get peer support for the exercises;
- hands-on support to attendees in the room, e.g. with logging on and running jobs, or providing OpenMP expertise if possible;
- being available for the days between the sessions to answer questions, either face-to-face or online.
A room with a large TV and a laptop with wifi access should be sufficient to host the course.
There will be OpenMP experts from EPCC available online throughout the course, but we were hoping to enable as many issues as possible to be dealt with locally.
Getting involved
If you are interested in supporting the course then please email [email protected] and I will add you to our mailing list.
Course Chat
There will be a Course Chat page
The Chat page is a live collaborative online document which we will use to share links, information and comments. All course participants are encouraged to contribute.
Registration
Please register via the PRACE Registration page
Questions?
If you have any questions please contact the ARCHER Helpdesk.
