Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing

This course provides an introduction to both high performance computing hardware and theory, and the MPI parallel programming library. The course is appropriate for those who are relatively new to HPC, and would like a general introduction to the field, information to help choose which hardware and software to use, and skills for developing parallel codes. The session requires at least a basic knowledge of C or Fortran.

The morning session of the full-day course will introduce the various HPC platforms, architectures, & programming approaches, allowing you to make an informed decision about what is appropriate for your needs. Topics covered will include:

• What is HPC?
• Taxonomy of computer architectures
• VPAC's facilities & approach to hardware
• Parallel Programming styles & libraries

The afternoon session will provide a hands-on introduction to the widely-used MPI parallel programming language. By the end of the session, you should understand the structure and thinking-model required to write MPI programs, and be able to write & debug basic MPI applications. Topics covered will include:

• Introduction to the Message Passing philosophy
• Hands on walkthrough of the core MPI communication functions
• Tutorial on working with multi-use clusters, including VPAC's Brecca
• Tutorial on debugging MPI programs

If you intend to do a significant amount of parallel programming, we strongly suggest you also attend the 'Intermediate MPI & Parallel Programming Basics' workshop, to consolidate your skills.

This course as a full day event. The course is run consecutively with the more advanced course 'Intermediate MPI & Parallel Programming Basics', running the following day. It is intended that most course participants will register to attend the full 2-day program, as we believe this is the best way to get the most out of each of these courses.

Guest accounts will be provided for attendees that do not have an account on a VPAC Supercomputer, however, if you plan to get an account in the near future, please consider applying before the course and you will be able to use your own. Please mark on you account application forms that you will be attending this course and we will try and get your account created before hand.

This course is free to staff and students at VPAC Member Universities, however, booking in advance is essential. Please book your place by selecting a session time or contact training@vpac.org or phone +61 3 9925 4410.