SUMMARY

• Scheduled maintenance downtime was postponed, now on November 15th.

• Learn about the upcoming Niagara expansion at the SciNet User Group Meeting on November 13.

• Training and education program continues with “Numerical Computing with Python”, “GPU Programming with CUDA”, “Intro to Niagara” and “Intro to Linux” this month.

Details can be found below and are also available on the SciNet education website courses.scinet.utoronto.ca and the SciNet wiki docs.scinet.utoronto.ca.

SYSTEM CHANGES

• Research groups that require more computational or storage resources than those that come with a default account on any of the Canadian national systems, can request more in the annual Resource Allocation Competition, organized by Compute Canada. The invitation for applications went out on September 24, and will be open until November 7, 2019

• Scheduled maintenance on Friday November 15, 2019 at the SciNet Datacenter. This will require a full system power-off, so starting 7am all systems should be shutdown. We expect the systems to be back late that evening day.

• After the shutdown, the SLURM scheduler will have been upgraded to version 19. This should not require any changes from users.

EVENTS COMING UP

To sign up for the events below, go to https://scinet.courses. Most events are recorded and posted on the courses site within a few work days.

The SciNet Teaching Room and Boardroom in the SciNet office space on the eleventh floor of the MaR
S West Tower, Suite 1140, 661 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1M1.

• NUMERICAL COMPUTING WITH PYTHON
  Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
  November 5 to December 5, 2019 (8 lectures)
  SciNet Teaching Room

  Learn about numerical computing even with little programming experience. Covers numerical computing in Python, best practices and visualization. Experience with Python is required.

  Participation counts towards the Scientific Computing Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/473

• INTRO TO NIAGARA
  Wednesday November 13, 2019, 10:00 am – 11:30 am
  SciNet Boardroom

  This is a class of approximately 60-90 minutes to introduce SciNet and the Niagara supercomputer and teach you how to the system.

  Participation counts towards the HPC Certificate.

  For more information and sign-up, go to https://scinet.courses/486

  Further sessions of this Intro are planned for December 11, January 8, February 12, March 11, April 8, May 13 and June 10.

• SCINET USER GROUP MEETING (SNUG) Wednesday November 13, 2019, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm
  SciNet Boardroom

  Pizza, user discussion, and presentations about:

  Upcoming New Resources at SciNet: Niagara Expansion and GPU System

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/500

  Further SNUG meetings will be held on December 11, January 8, February 12, March 11, April 8, May 13 and June 10.

• GPU PROGRAMMING WITH CUDA
  Monday November 25, 2019, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  SciNet Teaching Room

  The goal of this three-hour workshop is for students, new to GPU programming but familiar with programming in C/C++, to leave being able to write simple kernels for their own problems, and understand the tools and techniques needed to improve the results.

  Participation counts towards the HPC Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/516

• INTRO TO THE LINUX COMMAND LINE
  Wednesday November 27, 2019, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  SciNet Teaching Room

  Learn the basics of how to use the Linux shell in two hours. Very useful for new users of SciNet that have little or no experience with Linux.

  Participation counts towards the Scientific Computing Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/495

  Further “Intro to the Linux Command Line” sessions will be held on January 15, March 18 and May 20, 2020.

• UofT Viz Discussion Group November 29, 2019 SciNet Boardroom

  Meetings for visualization enthusiasts to discuss and share ideas about visualization and novel data representations.

  For more information, see https://scinet.courses/523

• SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING FOR PHYSICISTS (PHY1610)
  Winter 2020, starting January 7. SciNet Teaching Room

  This course is aimed at reducing your struggle in getting started with computational projects, and make you a more efficient computational scientist. Topics include well-established best practices for developing software as it applies to scientific computations, common numerical techniques and packages, and aspects of high performance computing. While we will introduce the C++ language, in one language or another, students should already have some programming experience. Despite the title, this course is suitable for many physical scientists (chemists, astronomers, …).

  This course is part of the physics graduate program. Students willing to take the course as part of their graduate program have to enroll through Acorn/ROSI.

  For more information, see https://scinet.courses/468

• QUANTITATIVE APPLICATIONS FOR DATA ANALYSIS (EES1137)
  Winter 2020, starting January 8.
  University of Toronto Scarborough Campus

  In this course data analysis techniques utilizing Python and R statistical language, will be discussed and introduced, as well as, the basics of programming and scientific computing. The goal of this course is to prepare graduate students to perform scientific data analysis. Successful students will learn how to use statistical inference tools to gain insight into large and small data sets, as well as be exposed to cutting-edge techniques and best practises to store, manage and analyze (large) data.

  Topics include: Python and R programming, version control, automation, modular programming and scientific visualization.

  Students willing to take the course as part of their graduate program have to enroll through Acorn/ROSI. This course is part of the EES graduate program and to be taught at the UTSc campus.

  For more information, see https://scinet.courses/513

• PARALLEL PERFORMANCE TUNING
  Monday January 13, 2020, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  SciNet Teaching Room

  A three-hour workshop on profiling, performance analysis, and tuning of applications.

  Participation counts towards the HPC Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/518

• INTERMEDIATE PARALLEL PROGRAMMING WITH MPI
  Monday February 3, 2020, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  SciNet Teaching Room

  Apply MPI to realistic scientific computing examples and learn to use advanced MPI techniques such as non-blocking communications.

  Participation counts towards the HPC Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/519

• LINUX SHELL SCRIPTING
  Monday February 19, 2020, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  SciNet Teaching Room

  Learn how to write bash scripts, use environment variables, how to control process, and much more. Requires some basic Linux command line experience.

  Participation counts towards the Data Science Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/511

  Another “Shell Scripting” session will be held on June 17.

• ADVANCED DISTRIBUTED MEMORY PARALLEL PROGRAMMING WITH MPI
  Monday April 6, 2020, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  SciNet Teaching Room

  In this three-hour workshop, you will learn advanced MPI techniques such as MPI Datatypes, MPI-IO and one-sided communications.

  Participation counts towards the HPC Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/525

• INTRO TO NEURAL NETWORK PROGRAMMING
  Starting April 14, 2020, 7 weeks, Tuesdays and Thursdays
  10:00 am – 11:00 noon
  SciNet Teaching Room

  This seven-week class will introduce neural network programming concepts, theory and techniques. The class material will begin at an introductory level, intended for those with no experience with neural networks, eventually covering intermediate-to-advanced concepts. The programming language will be Python 3.7; experience with Python programming will be assumed. The Keras neural network framework will be used for neural network programming; no experience with Keras will be expected.

  Participation counts towards the Data Science Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/514

• RELATIONAL DATABASE BASICS
  Monday May 4, 2020, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
  SciNet Teaching Room

  Principles and uses of relational databases with practical examples using Python and sqlite.

  Participation counts towards the Data Science Certificate.

  For sign-up and more information, see https://scinet.courses/520