There’s a great article on profiling techniques for HPC over at Admin Magazine.  The author, Jeff Layton, lays out the differences between profiling and tracing, and then provides links to a wealth of tools:  processor tracing tools, system profiling tools, system tracing tools, and even MPI profiling/tracing tools.

“Knowing your application is one of the keys to being able to improve it and, perhaps most importantly, being able to judge which architecture (or architectures) you should think about using. In essence, “knowing yourself” from an application perspective. This ability is very important in the current climate, where non-x86 processors are on the rise and where accelerators are also becoming more commonplace and diverse.”

Here’s an interesting new web-based resource for learning command-line interactions in Linux:

• http://nixsrv.com/?id=llthw

It includes a Javascript simulator for a Linux command-line (it takes a few seconds for the simulator to “boot up” when you first go to the webpage).  Multiple web-pages will walk you through the basic tools needed to get work done on the command-line.

A team of researchers is looking for feedback on current work in Computational Thinking (the overall project is funded by NSF CI-TEAM).  Computational Thinking in America’s Workplaces has produced two profiles of Computational Thinking-Enabled STEM Professionals (one for scientists, the other for product engineers).  They are seeking your assistance in gathering input.  Specifically, they need your help in recruiting people to complete an online survey to gather feedback on the Profile of a Computational Thinking-Enabled STEM Professional developed in this project.

The survey asks respondents to rate the importance of each of the 67 tasks described in the profile and to indicate how frequently they perform each of these tasks.  The survey also allows respondents to submit general comments about the profiles.  The survey results help insure that the profiles have broad validity and applicability.

The survey closes 8/17/2012

The survey is at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CTEnabledSTEMPro

(this came by way of Shodor Foundation)

Enabling Discovery with Dell HPC Solutions

Please join us for this 1-day workshop

Register Here:

• https://www.etouches.com/UNC

Agenda:

• 8:30 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.                Registration
• 8:45a.m. — 9:00 a.m.                Dell Welcome
• 9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.              “Dell HPC Solutions”  (Dr. Glen Otero, Dell HPC Computer Scientist)
• 9:45 a.m. – 10:25 a.m.              Corbin Jones, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology and Faculty Director of  High Throughput Sequencing Facility, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• 10:25 a.m. – 10:35 a.m.Break
• 10:35 a.m. – 11:15 p.m.            “Enabling discovery in Clinical Genomics” (Charles Schmitt, Director, Informatics, RENCI)
• 11:15 p.m. – 11:55  a.m.           “Intro to Parallel Programming Methods”John Pormann, Ph.D. Director, Scalable Computing Support CenterDuke University
• 12:00 p.m. – 12:45 p.m.            Networking Lunch
• 12:45 p.m. – 1:25 p.m.              Mark Burke, David H. Murdock Research Institute
• 1:25 p.m.  –  2:05 p.m.              Customer #5 Presentation (Duke)
• 2:05 p.m. –   2:35 p.m.              “The Core to Faster Simulation and Greater Discovery”  (Laurie Martin, Enterprise Technologist, Intel)
• 2:35 p.m. —  2:45 p.m                Break
• 2:45 p.m. –  3:00 p.m.               Brandon Hathaway, Director of Business Development, Mellanox
• 3:00 p.m. –  3:15 p.m.               “The Co-Evolution of Hadoop and HPC” (Josh Wills; Director of Data Science, Cloudera)
• 3: 15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.             “HPC Panel of Experts”  (Ask your HPC questions of this team of HPC Experts from across the industry!)

Please RSVP to the website above if you’d like to attend.

The NSF funded XSEDE Training, Education, and Outreach Services (TEOS) are nearing the end of the first year of activities. On behalf of the TEOS Managers, we are asking individuals to participate in a  brief survey to ensure that our programs and offerings are responsive to the needs of the community.

(Duke/SCSC will be filling out this survey as well, but if you feel that your needs are unique or different from the base campus needs, please contact XSEDE directly)

We are attaching a brief overview of the XSEDE project and the TEOS goals and strategies for your information. See also http://www.xsede.org 

The online survey is located at:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K3FRKT5

There are 30 questions split among the following sections:

• Background on yourself
• Training
• Education
• Outreach
• Campus Bridging
• General Comments

You may skip any sections or questions that you feel are outside your range of knowledge or interest.   We would like all surveys to be completed no later than April 15, 2012. This will give us time to review your comments and if needed make adjustments to our future plans.

Please feel free to share this survey and the attached document with others you know, who would like to share their opinions and advice.

Thank you in advance for sharing your comments and suggestions.

From HPCwire — “Software engineering is still something that gets too little attention from the technical computing community, much to the detriment of the scientists and engineers writing the applications. Greg Wilson has been on a mission to remedy that, mainly through his efforts at Software Carpentry, where he is the project lead. HPCwire asked Wilson about the progress he’s seen over the last several years and what remains to be done.“

Great interview with Greg over at:

• http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2011-07-18/software_carpentry_revisited.html

From our friends at Shodor:

A new online publication unveiled this week, the Journal Of Computational Science Education (JOCSE), will publish peer-reviewed articles focusing on various aspects of teaching computational science – the application of computing, especially supercomputing, to the solution of complex scientific
and engineering problems.

“The journal, freely available online with the first issue in December 2010, promotes the use of computation in education through disseminating unique uses of computation in the classroom as well as research findings in computational science education, with submissions from both professionals and students,” said Robert M. Panoff, Ph.D., founder and executive director of The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc. “JOCSE utilizes internet technology and a web-based format to allow for enhanced interactivity.”