Blog
The World-Class Data Infrastructure: a fundamental enabler for data-driven innovation
Author: Mark ParsonsPosted: 13 Jul 2018 | 15:28
The University of Edinburgh is set to play a key role in the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal, delivering the deal’s Data-Driven Innovation programme. Underpinning new data innovation hubs across the University will be an exciting new facility for the secure and trustworthy hosting and analysis of huge and varied datasets.
Industry projects update – and EPCC's Industry 4.0 event
Author: Thomas BlythPosted: 9 Jul 2018 | 11:56
2018 has been a busy year for EPCC so far, with several new collaborations with national and international companies. Here are some examples of our latest research-focused projects. We anticipate more success stories soon!
Arnau Miro: an HPC Europa visitor's report
Author: Guest bloggerPosted: 4 Jul 2018 | 10:22
Arnau Miró was an HPC-Europa visitor from 10th Jan–9th Apr 2018. He was hosted by Dr Charles Moulinec at STFC Daresbury Laboratory.
Hello everyone! My name is Arnau Miró and I am a third-year PhD student from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. I’m working in the Aerospace department in collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center Computer Applications in Science and Engineering department. I visited EPCC under the HPC-Europa3 transnational access programme, although I was mainly hosted by Dr Charles Moulinec at STFC Daresbury Laboratory.
HPC outreach: not a moment to lose!
Author: Nick BrownPosted: 19 Jun 2018 | 18:39
“There is not a moment to lose” – I don’t know if you have ever read any of the Aubrey-Maturin books by the late Patrick O’Brian, set at the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries and describing life in the Royal Navy. Even if you have only flicked through one of the books, you will probably have picked up an almost constant sense of urgency (a realistic representation of what pervaded the Navy at that time) in the books, much to the annoyance of the decidedly un-Navy-like Dr Maturin!
Considering the modern pace of change I think this sentiment is truer today, especially in scientific fields, than it has ever been before. Certainly from my perspective there is an urgency to try and push forward the state-of-the-art in HPC and share it, before other people’s activities supersede my work. However, I think this same sense of urgency also applies to other, non-technical, aspects of our community. Diversity is a prime example here and, whilst there are some excellent initiatives being adopted by the likes of the SuperComputing (SC) and ISC conferences, we still have a long way to go.
HPC-Europa 3 visit: Optical properties of ultra-thin monoelemental semiconductors
Author: Guest bloggerPosted: 12 Jun 2018 | 11:14
Guest blogger Matko Mužević, a PhD student from Croatia, is a remote visitor to EPCC through the HPC-Europa3 programme. He is using ARCHER while based at Cardiff University.
I'm working and doing my research at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek. My thesis deals with ultra-thin monoelemental materials and their properties. One of the most important properties to consider for the application of such materials are their optical properties.
Work experience at EPCC
Author: Guest bloggerPosted: 6 Jun 2018 | 08:38
Fourteen-year-old Alex Curtis joined us for a week of work experience in May, building a Wee Archlet (a Raspberry Pi cluster) and visiting the Advanced Computing Facility where ARCHER is hosted.
For my task I had the job of testing the instructions for the ‘Wee Archlet’ (Raspberry Pi cluster) to make sure it was understandable for people of my age. EPCC hopes that teenagers a bit older than me can open up one of their kits and build their own Wee Archlet. To create the Wee Archlet we had to make the Raspberry Pis to talk to each other in order to share out the resources from each Pi to work together as one big cluster.
TeamEPCC for ISC’18
Author: Guest bloggerPosted: 4 Jun 2018 | 20:41
Spyros Nita is an MSc student on our High Performance Computing with Data Science programme. He tells us about TeamEPCC, which will be competing in the Student Cluster Competition at ISC High Performance 2018.
Summer is on its way, and with it the annual International Supercomputing Conference (ISC). One of the three most important annual HPC events in the world, ISC focuses on the development of HPC, its scientific applications and its adoption into commercial environments. An important part of this event is the Student Cluster Competition (SCC), where teams representing twelve international universities meet to compete with each other. The University of Edinburgh is represented by TeamEPCC, four students currently enrolled in the MSc in High Performance Computing or MSc in High Performance Computing with Data Science.
MSc in HPC update: new hardware & scholarship deadline approaching!
Author: David HentyPosted: 1 May 2018 | 16:21
The closing date for our Highly Skilled Workforce scholarships, open to Scottish and EU students, has been extended to May 28th. Scholarship applications should be made after completion of an MSc application. See https://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/applying/.
We also have a scholarship for the MSc in HPC with Data Science programme that is provided by the Registers of Scotland. The closing date is May 21st - see https://www.ed.ac.uk/student-funding/postgraduate/uk-eu/science-engineering/informatics/registers-of-scotland
Both the above have nationality restrictions - our own John Fisher scholarships are open to all. See https://www.ed.ac.uk/student-funding/postgraduate/uk-eu/science-engineering/informatics/masters-hpc
You can see details of both HPC Masters courses at the Computing and Informatics web page.
HPC-Europa3: an overview
Author: Catherine InglisPosted: 26 Apr 2018 | 12:13
The HPC-Europa3 Transnational Access programme includes access to world-class HPC systems and scientific collaboration with host researchers in any field. If you want to find out more about the programme then this video, originally part of the ARCHER series of webinars, is an excellent starting point.
March 2018 meeting of the MPI Forum
Author: Daniel HolmesPosted: 21 Apr 2018 | 16:21
In the March 2018 meeting of the MPI Forum, the “Persistent Collectives” proposal began the formal ratification procedure, the “Sessions” proposal took a step forward, but the “Fault Tolerance” saga took a step side-ways.
The proposal to add persistent collective operations to MPI was formally read at the March meeting, and was well-received by all those present. The first vote for this proposal will happen in June and the second vote in September. If all goes well, this addition to MPI will be announced at SC18.
