The NCC Netherlands

Introduction to supercomputing September
2023-09-19 09:00 - 12:30 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Online
When you need to perform many calculations, or analyses that are too large for your own system, clusters and supercomputers provide the computing power you need. In this course, you will learn to work with the national supercomputer Snellius.
Sign up

19 Sep 2023
Time: 9.00 to 12:30
Location: Online

Sign up

Prerequisite knowledge
No prior knowledge required
Costs
Free

What will you learn in this training?
In this training you will do practical exercises to learn how to effectively use the national supercomputer Snellius and how to complete your tasks with minimal effort in the shortest possible time.
For whom?
Anyone who wants to know how to perform massive computing tasks.
The language of instruction is English.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of Unix shell is helpful.

Sign up

Introduction Supercomputing August 29
2023-08-29 09:00 - 12:30 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Online
When you need to perform many calculations, or analyses that are too large for your own system, clusters and supercomputers provide the computing power you need. In this course, you will learn to work with the national supercomputer Snellius.
Registrate
What will you learn in this training?
In this training you will do practical exercises to learn how to effectively use the national supercomputer Snellius and how to complete your tasks with minimal effort in the shortest possible time.
For whom?
Anyone who wants to know how to perform massive computing tasks.
The language of instruction is English.
Participation is Free
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of Unix shell is helpful.

Introduction to supercomputing August
2023-08-02 09:00 - 12:30 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Webinar
When you need to perform many calculations, or analyses that are too large for your own system, clusters and supercomputers provide the computing power you need. In this course, you will learn to work with the national supercomputer Snellius.

What will you learn in this training?
In this training you will do practical exercises to learn how to effectively use the national supercomputer Snellius and how to complete your tasks with minimal effort in the shortest possible time.
For whom?
Anyone who wants to know how to perform massive computing tasks.
The language of instruction is English.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of Unix shell is helpful.

HPC-AI Meetup - Data Science and Computational Modelling
2023-07-27 17:00 - 17:45 UTC | Online
Come and learn about the use of highperformancecomputing at The Ocean Cleanup and how EuroCC Netherlands can help accelerate the innovation process of AI and modelling with the help of HPC technology.
We are excited to announce the very first HPC-AI Meetup from a series aimed at sharing knowledge on the capabilities of the High-Performance Computing and its applications in the real-world on July 27th starting with 🕔 17h00 CET.
Our guest-speaker Bruno Sainte-Rose – the Lead Computational Modeller at The Ocean Cleanup – will be sharing his knowledge in the Computational Modelling activities for the Oceans team where the objective is to model and verify the efficiency of the cleanup of the offshore plastic accumulation in the oceanic gyres.
Sign up: https://www.linkedin.com/events/hpc-aimeetup-datascienceandcomp7080451613840027648/

National XR Day
2023-07-05 09:30 - 17:00 UTC | TU Delft Library, Prometheusplein 1, Delft, Netherlands
What does eXtended Reality (XR) mean for education and research? Find out for yourself during the National XR Day organized by TU Delft Library and SURF. Discover the latest developments and interesting applications in the field of XR, and learn about the technology behind XR.

sign up

5th July 2023
Programme
More information about the programme you can find on the website of SURF

FPGA for HPC seminar
2023-06-21 - 2023-06-22 | SURF Utrecht, Moreelsepark 48, Utrecht, 3511 EP, Netherlands
SURF organizes, together with the HW Acceleration community, a FPGA for HPC seminar, under the name; “FIRE: FPGA Innovation Research Exchange“.
Date: 21 — 22 Jun 2023
Time: 9:00 to 17:30
Location: SURF Utrecht

Sign up

Costs: Free

You are invited!
This is the first of a series of workshops which brings together FPGA practitioners, Computer Science and Engineering experts, Scientific Computing experts and application owners, and HPC providers, in an effort to build a community to evaluate the need and usability of FPGAs in HPC and Scientific Computing.
We planned an exciting program!
June 21st – Morning program

Three plenary talks by researchers in the HWAccel community
Two invited talks from an FPGAs integrator (University of Paderborn)
FPGA vendor (Xilinx)

Lunch
June 21st – Afternoon program

Set of selected pitches from the community, those using (or wanting to use) FPGAs for their own computational science applications and tools. These pitches are selected to stir discussion and assess the potential impact of FPGAs for different domains, specialists, experts, and, ultimately, SURF.

June 22nd – This day is reserved for an FPGA programming tutorial by Xilinx.
Register
We have a limited number of seats, so please register early!
Location
The event takes place at the SURF office in Utrecht, Moreelsepark 48, 3511 EP Utrecht.

Prerequisite knowledge: No prior knowledge required

Energy Efficient Computing
2023-06-15 - 2023-06-16 | SURF Amsterdam, Science Park 140, Amsterdam, 1098 XG, Netherlands
Did you know that an optimal use of applications or code development can have an impact in the environment? The energy usage of computing infrastructure is becoming an increasingly prominent topic for computing systems design and usage. In this course you will learn about the basics behind energy efficient computing.
Sign up
15 — 16 Jun 2023
Time: June 15th 11:00 – 17:00 | Juni 16th 9:30 – 17:00
Location: Hybrid (Online or at SURF Amsterdam)

What?
This course will cover tools and technologies that allow a user/software-developer to understand their energy usage in terms of energy analysis of the software that is being deployed on the system.
We will give you a complete overview on how to optimize the use of computing systems and application development for the purpose of energy efficiency, rather than keeping a focus on performance or memory usage. You will learn how to do green coding and work with applications in a sustainable way. Some of the main topics will include:

Overview of the data center energy footprint
Energy usage and energy-aware computing on HPC systems
Large-scale application performance and energy analysis
Application characterization and optimization for energy efficiency

Who?

Everyone interested in learning how to understand energy usage of their software.

Requirements:

Basic knowledge of Linux
Basic programming experience is recommended

You should have:
Your own laptop with an up-to-date browser and a terminal emulator. The use of the operating systems Linux and macOS is preferred, but not mandatory. For Windows users we recommend to download MobaXterm (portable version) as terminal emulator.
Course Material: Git repro
Important note for online participation
This course will be organized at the SURF office in Amsterdam, where the trainers will be able to have direct interaction with the participants for hands-on exercises. For online participants, the support for hands-on exercises will be very limited. if you are very interested in doing hands-on exercises, we highly encourage that you participate in this course at the SURF office in Amsterdam.
Location
SURF Amsterdam
Science Park 140
1098 XG Amsterdam or Online

Advanced course SURF Research Cloud
2023-06-13 09:00 - 13:00 UTC | SURF Amsterdam, Science Park 140, Amsterdam, 1098 XG, Netherlands
Are you interested in improving your skills in cloud computing to take the most out of the services? Join this free Research Cloud training to learn about advanced possibilities with SURF Research Cloud. This is a follow-up of the Introduction to SURF Research Cloud training.

13 Jun 2023
Time 9.00 until 13.00
Location SURF Amsterdam (room VK1/2)
Costs: free

Sign up

This training we will go over the following topics:

Managing your project: learn how to distribute rights, permissions and manage the costs among the participants of your collaboration
Connecting Research Drive to your workspaces
Creating custom configurations with scripts in Ansible, Powershell or Docker for your virtual machines

This is a follow-up of the Introduction to SURF Research Cloud training.
For whom?
Research Engineers, PhD Students, Professors.
The language of instruction is English.
Requirements

Experience in running Linux commands is recommended
Experience in version control (git)

Location
The training will be hosted at SURF’s office in Amsterdam.
SURF Amsterdam
Science Park 140
1098 XG Amsterdam

MPI and OpenMP in Scientific Software Development
2023-06-12 - 2023-06-14 | Online
Would you like to learn how to parallelize effectively with MPI and OpenMP and get to know some tricks from the experts?
Sign up

This advanced MPI/OpenMP course describes different everyday challenges that developers of parallel code have to face in everyday work, and provides working solutions for them. Here you will see how to deal with parallel profiling and explore the knobs and dials that make your code exploit the best possible performance, just like domain decomposition techniques and parallel I/O. Each of these sessions includes hands-on exercises to facilitate the understanding of the different constructs. Moreover, you will also obtain some insight on useful parallel libraries and routines for scientific code development.
What?
In this course you will:

Understand how to work with MPI and OpenMP with many examples from scientific applications
Learn when and how to apply different parallelization strategies
Experience how to develop and optimize code step by step for its use on a supercomputer

Who?
Everyone interested in learning how to make efficient use of MPI and OpenMP for different scientific applications
Requirements:

Basic knowledge of Linux
Basic knowledge of programming, particularly with C/C++ or Fortran
Basic knowledge of parallel computing. No specific experience with supercomputing systems is necessary.
Basic knowledge of MPI and OpenMP constructs (provided in the basic course)

You should have:
Your own laptop with an up-to-date browser and a terminal emulator. The use of the operating systems Linux and macOS is preferred, but not mandatory. For Windows users we recommend to download MobaXterm (portable version) as terminal emulator.
Acknowledgments
Part of the materials from this course are kindly provided by the collaboration between PRACE and HLRS.
Basic course
If you are not familiar with MPI/OpenMP, you may get the necessary knowledge right on time in the basic course.

Course Basic Parallel Programming with MPI and OpenMP
2023-06-08 - 2023-06-09 | Online
This 2-day basic course is focused on providing an introduction to parallel programming using the most widely used approaches: Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP).

You will start exploring the benefits (and limitations) of parallel programming, and then you will explore the possibilities that task and data parallelism offer to develop multi-core and multi-node programs. Each session includes hands-on exercises to facilitate the understanding of the different constructs. As a participant, you have already some familiarity with C or Fortran programming, and in these two days you will be able to start the development of your own parallel application.
Requirements

Basic knowledge of one programming language among C, Fortran or Python
Basic knowledge of the operating system Linux

Part of the materials from this course are kindly provided by the collaboration between PRACE and HLRS.
Advanced course
Right after this short course you will have the opportunity to continue exploring advanced topics on parallel programming and everyday use of MPI/OpenMP. For this you’ll also need to register for the following advanced course.

Sign up

Introduction to supercomputing
2023-06-06 09:00 - 12:30 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Online
When you need to perform many calculations, or analyses that are too large for your own system, clusters and supercomputers provide the computing power you need. In this course, you will learn to work with the national supercomputer Snellius and the national computing cluster Lisa.

What will you learn in this training?
In this training you will do practical exercises to learn how to effectively use the national computing cluster Lisa and the national supercomputer Snellius and how to complete your tasks with minimal effort in the shortest possible time.
For whom?
Anyone who wants to know how to perform massive computing tasks.
The language of instruction is English.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of Unix shell is helpful.

Sign up for free

Bonn Sustainable AI Conference 2023
2023-05-30 - 2023-06-01
Theme 2023: Sustainable AI Across Borders,
Date: May 30th to June 1st 2023,
Location: Universitätsclub Bonn, Germany

Are you interested in what AI means in terms of sustainability? On the one hand, wonderful solutions can be achieved through AI, on the other hand, it also causes great CO2 emissions. How can you deal with this? The Sustainable AI event organized by Bonn Sustainable AI lab affiliated with Bonn University in Germany addresses this.

This is the second Sustainable AI conference organized by the Bonn Sustainable AI lab at Bonn University’s Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE). The focus of the first conference in June 2021 was to create a community of researchers in the space of Sustainable AI and to raise awareness on the topic. The second conference will focus on cross cultural perspectives to address the variety and scope of ethical issues on a global scale.

An inspiration for this theme is to acknowledge the reality that certain countries play an integral role in the early production phase and the waste management but may never experience the benefits of AI.

Registrate (no costs): https://sustainable-ai-conference.eu/

SURF Research Bootcamp
2023-05-24 13:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Amsterdam)
Together with Maastricht University and the MUMC, SURF is organising the SURF Research Bootcamp. The bootcamp is organised for researchers and research support staff. An interesting program awaits, featuring exciting hands-on workshops and an informative session. This is an free, on-site event at Maastricht University.

Programme
From 13:00 – 16:00, you can attend a workshop or an information session. You can choose from three workshops and one information session.
From 16.00 – 18.00 we will organise drinks to conclude the SURF Bootcamp.
Some sessions have a participant limit, so register soon. Please note that the medium of communication for this event is English, and it is exclusively an on-site event.
Workshops and information session
1. Workshop Ldot, a study management system developed by Maastricht University.
Ldot is an app that can securely store participant data for scientific research and simplify logistics. This session will discuss experiences with storing data and logistical challenges, and demonstrate Ldot’s functionality. The coordinator of the Cardiac Tissue Repository, Michiel Henkens, will explain how Ldot has helped with logistics, and attendees can try out Ldot in different use cases.
2. Personal Health Train (PHT) workshop
This session introduces the Personal Health Train (PHT) concept and includes a hands-on session. The PHT brings algorithms to where the data is, rather than centralizing the data. It allows controlled access to diverse data sources while ensuring privacy and patient engagement. Health data is made FAIR before being stored in stations controlled by individuals, physicians, hospitals, biobanks, and data repositories.
3. Workshop on building a virtual research environment (VRE) with SURF Research Cloud
SURF Research Cloud is a portal for efficiently building virtual research workplaces. You can use pre-configured workspaces and datasets or add your own datasets. This session is usefull for anyone who wants to use a flexible and customized environment to run powerful applications. It is also a useful kickstarter for current HPC Cloud users.
4. Support4Research: Presentation of various SURF services for Research Data Management
The focus of this session will be on various SURF services for research, particularly successful use cases achieved through collaboration with Maastricht University and the UMC. Services such as SURF Research Access Management, a range of Research Data Management services (including iRODS, Yoda, SURF Research Drive and Data archive) and compute services will be presented. Don’t miss the chance to discover how these services can take your research to the next level!

SURF Research Day
2023-05-23 08:00 - 17:00 UTC | Rijtuigenloods, Piet Mondriaanplein 61, Amersfoort, Netherlands
The national conference that connects research, IT and innovation. The event takes place on May 23rd 2023. This years theme is: Get On Board. The programme is a combination of offline and online.
In this event you will discover current and future technologies that will help you improve and push your research. Besides that it’s the perfect place to connect with the research world and get inspired by interesting speakers. On top of all, the winner of the SURF Research Support Champion will be announced during Research Week.
Entrance is free!
Registration is open

What to expect?

Discover current and future technologies that will help you push the boundaries of your research.
Connect with research communities, peers, and people from SURF.
Get inspired by prominent speakers.
Share your thoughts on hot topics such as secure data sharing, open science, artificial intelligence, or energy-efficient computing.
Learn how to work effectively with our high-end IT solutions.
Find out who this year’s SURF Research Support Champions are.

More information

Machine Learning on HPC systems (1 day)
2023-05-16 09:30 - 17:00 UTC | SURF Amsterdam, Science Park 140, Amsterdam, 1098 XG, Netherlands
You want to train a neural network for your research project, and have just gotten access to a high performance cluster with a lot of powerful hardware. Great! But, how can you make sure that you’ll use these (expensive!) resources effectively? In this course, you will learn how to get the most results out of the computational budget you were granted.

In this course you will learn:

How to set up your software environment, and why the preinstalled software modules are useful;
How the file I/O might limit your training speed, and how to overcome that;
About the technical capabilities of modern day CPUs and GPUs (reduced precision datatypes, vector/matrix instructions);
How to find bottlenecks in your code through creating a (PyTorch) profile;
How to use multiple CPUs or GPUs in a single training (parallel computing for deep learning).

Who?
Machine Learning researchers whose requirements for training their neural networks have outgrown their local computer, and are using or planning to use a high performance computing cluster (such as Snellius) to train their models.
Prerequisites

Basic knowledge in PyTorch, TensorFlow or a similar framework;
Basic knowledge on Python programming. Some experience in using Jupyter notebooks is desireable, but not essential;
Basic knowledge in using a high performance computing cluster (see our course ‘Introduction to cluster and supercomputing);
Specifically: know how to submit a job, and how to interact with the module environment.

Sign up: https://events.surf.nl/kort4/open/8e6e2802-7165-479f-ae4e-be242555961e *Please note, registration closes May 15!

EuroCC-AMD Workshop: Developing HPC Applications with AMD GPUs
2023-05-02 08:00 - 2023-05-05 17:00 UTC
AMD, in collaboration with CASTIEL-EuroCC, will be giving a workshop on developing HPC applications for AMD GPUs. The workshop will begin with a developer’s view of the AMD system GPUS and associated hardware. Then it will cover a few different programming options including HIP and OpenMP. There will be some presentations on obtaining the best performance for your application. The workshop will then introduce some of the available AMD profiling and debugging tools.
The workshop is open for CASTIEL and EuroCC due to the limited amount of places and it targets application developers with an understanding of recent HPC computing hardware and computing environments.
No prior GPU programming experience is necessary.
The content will be about 30%/40%/30% Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced.

2 May 2023Time Topic13:00 – 13:15 CASTIEL Intro13:15 – 13:25 AMD Presentation Roadmap13:25 – 13:45 Introduction to the System for Exercises13:45 – 14:00 Introduction to AMD Architecture14:00 – 14:15 Break14:15 – 15:15 Introduction to HIP15:15 – 15:45 HIP Exercises15:45 – 16:00 HIPFort16:00 – 16:15 Break16:15 – 16:40 Porting applications to HIP16:40 – 16:55 Porting exercises16:55 – 17:00 Wrap-up
3 May 2023Time Topic13:00 – 13:50 Getting Started with OpenMP® Offload Applications on AMD Accelerators13:50 – 14:30 OpenMP® exercises14:30 – 14:45 Break14:45 – 15:00 OpenACC15:00 – 16:00 Advanced OpenMP® offloading16:00 – 16:10 Break16:10 – 16:40 Advanced OpenMP® Exercises16:40 – 16:50 Mixing HIP and OpenMP®16:50 – 16:55 Infinity Hub/HPC Community16:55 – 17:00 Wrap-up
4 May 2023Time Topic13:00 – 13:40 Kokkos13:40 – 13:55 Kokkos Exercises13:55 – 14:05 Break14:05 – 14:30 AMD Communication Fabrics and GPU-Aware MPI14:30 – 14:45 GPU Aware Exercises14:45 – 14:55 Break14:55 – 15:35 AMD Node Memory Model15:35 – 15:50 Memory Model Exercises15:50 – 16:00 Break16:00 – 16:40 Affinity — Placement, Ordering and Binding16:40 – 16:55 Affinity exercises16:55 – 17:00 Wrap-up
5 May 2023Time Topic13:00 – 13:20 Introduction to Rocprof13:20 – 13:35 Rocprof Exercises13:35 – 14:00 Introduction to Omnitrace14:00 – 14:15 Omnitrace Exercises14:15 – 14:25 Break14:25 – 15:25 Roofline15:25 – 15:55 Introduction to Omniperf15:55 – 16:10 Exercises – Omniperf16:10 – 16:20 Break16:20 – 16:55 Debuggers – rocgdb16:55 – 17:00 Wrap-up
You need to register in advance for this workshop.Before the event, you will receive a link from Webex to join the meeting.

If you would like to participate in the workshop, please register in advance by Monday 24 April, EoD: https://www.eurocc-access.eu/event/eurocc-amd-workshop-developing-hpc-applications-with-amd-gpus/

Digital Competence Centre projects 2022 presentation (III)
2023-04-26 13:00 - 14:30 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Webinar
The 10 initiatives taken up through the Digital Competence Centres in 2022 include interesting projects in the areas of virtual data assistance, Yoda, SRAM and text mining. In this third and final information session, we will interactively share the results of three projects.

Registration in advance is not necessary, you are cordially invited to join online!
Presentations 26 April

1. FY4C – FAIR Yoda for communities
Leiden University, Utrecht University, Vrije Universiteit, Wageningen University and Erasmus University Rotterdam

2. Validation Anonymisation Tooling (VAT)
Amsterdam UMC

3. Data Stations
SANS-KNAW

* Note: the presentations are in English
Background
The digitisation of science is noticeable in all fields and disciplines. The implementation plan “Investments in digital research infrastructure” describes how Digital Competence Centres (DCCs) are to play a role in pooling and sharing knowledge and expertise in the field of digitisation. SURF has an important role in technically facilitating and coordinating the secure, federated system to interconnect the DCCs and in supporting the DCCs in knowledge sharing. SURF supports the DCCs, including by issuing calls for proposals, organising a SURF Research Bootcamp and facilitating the DCC-IN network.
For whom?
All those interested in DCCs. Institutions not affiliated to SURF and other interested parties are also welcome to join!
Participation
Registration in advance is not necessary: you can join online on the day itself. See the MS Teams link for this third session on 26 April on this page.
Contact
More background information? Email dcc-support@surf.nl.

Spring School in Computational Chemistry
2023-04-26 08:00 - 2023-04-28 17:00 (Europe/Moscow)
The Spring School provides a comprehensive, tutorial-style, hands-on, introductory and intermediate-level treatment of the essential methods for molecular modeling and computational chemistry using modern supercomputers. During 3 days you will learn more about:* Classical molecular dynamics, intro + hands on (1 day)* Electronic structure theory, intro + hands on (1 day)* Machine learning in chemistry, intro + hands on* Special topics on enhanced sampling techniques and visualizationThe school is a must for graduate students in the field, providing an overview of “what can be calculated and how should it be done”. It’s also a great opportunity to build your professional network! The intense schedule might also be suitable for an industry representative to get a hands-on introduction to modelling. To get an idea of the depth in which the topics are covered, take a look at the materials from the 2020 School or a blog entry of the 2019 School.The school has a participation fee of 120 EUR (+ VAT). It covers the lectures, coffees, lunches, poster session snacks, and the sauna + dinner.The first registration DL is 26th March, but if seats are free beyond it, registering will be possible also later.A more detailed description, with links to previous Schools and registration at:https://ssl.eventilla.com/sscc-2023

Introduction to supercomputing
2023-04-21 09:00 - 12:30 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Online
When you need to perform many calculations, or analyses that are too large for your own system, clusters and supercomputers provide the computing power you need. In this course, you will learn to work with the national supercomputer Snellius and the national computing cluster Lisa.

What will you learn in this training?
In this training you will do practical exercises to learn how to effectively use the national computing cluster Lisa and the national supercomputer Snellius and how to complete your tasks with minimal effort in the shortest possible time.
For whom?
Anyone who wants to know how to perform massive computing tasks.
The language of instruction is English.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of Unix shell is helpful.

LUMI: Hackathon - Optimizing for AMD GPUs
2023-04-17 08:00 - 2023-04-21 17:00 UTC | CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd, Keilaranta 14, Epsoo, 02150, Finland
The Hackathon is a way for you to get free help to optimize your software for the AMD GPUs available on LUMI-G!
You can apply if you are a researcher or a company located in either one of the LUMI consortium countries or a member of EuroHPC country. Ph.D. students and holders of postdoctoral fellowships are also eligible to apply. Up to six (6) projects will be selected for this hackathon. The selected projects will receive help from HPE and AMD staff of the HPE Center of Excellence for LUMI and from members of the LUMI User Support Team. The Hackathon will be on site at CSC in Espoo (close to Helsinki). The deadline for applications is February 24 2023.
There will be another hackathon in the second half of 2023.
The following sections give more detail on what to expect and describe how you can apply. In order to make sure we can properly support those who attend we are asking for some information on what you hope to achieve.
Who can apply
This is an open call. Anyone who is a member of an organization eligible to receive an allocation for LUMI compute resources is also welcome to apply to this program. In brief, this means that a research software developer affiliated with a research organization in the EuroHPC countries and/or countries part of the LUMI consortium can apply. A company, which has its headquarters in such countries, is also eligible. By partnering with European research groups and/or companies, a non-European applicant can also participate, but please note that the principal investigator of any projects that apply will need to be based in the EU or an associated country. Ph.D. students and holders of postdoctoral fellowships are also eligible to apply, but we may ask for further letters of support in such cases.
For more information, please see:

LUMI General Terms of Use https://www.lumi-supercomputer.eu/lumi-general-terms-of-use_1-0/
EuroHPC JU Access Policy https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2021-03/Decision%2006.2021%20-%20Access%20policy.pdf

What we are looking for
We are looking for research groups and companies interested in making their scientific software utilize efficiently the new AMD GPU-compute architecture in LUMI, in collaboration with LUMI experts. We are looking for proposals outlining a team effort of solving performance bottlenecks in existing software. The scope should be limited so that the task can be accomplished in one week with your team of two (2) to four (4) people.
Collectively the team should know the application intimately. There will be intensive mentoring during this 5-day hands-on workshop. Mentors come from HPE’s Center of Excellence, and the LUMI User Support Team and will help your team accomplish your team’s goal. We expect that your software already compiles and runs on AMD GPUs, preferably with a build system based on standard tools like Make or CMake.
It is an advantage if intended work is mainly in their own source code, and not in external third-party libraries (for which they are not the main developers), as it may be difficult to interact quickly with third parties during the hackathon.
We are mainly looking for software with open source licenses, or at least free academic use. We will consider commercially licensed software only in exceptional cases.
How to apply
Closing date: 24 February 2023, 17:00 CETHackathon period: 17-21 April 2023
We will organise an accompanying course about profiling GPU programs the week before the hackathon. It will happen online on the 13 April from 9:00 until 17:00. Attendance from teams joining the hackathon is advised.
Please register here: https://ssl.eventilla.com/event/yWdEZ
The application form is relatively short and we ask for: contact information, a short technical description of the software (programming languages, libraries etc), a description of the intended work, and a motivation for why a successful effort will useful for the end-users (scientists).
Teams whose application successfully passes the selection process will need to register for the event to confirm participation within two weeks from notification of acceptance. The notification of acceptance will include information on how to register.
How we will assess your application
Assessment process
The teams will be selected based on a scientific and technical review. The scientific review is performed by the LUMI consortium and/or external evaluators. The technical review is performed by the LUMI User Support Team and HPE/AMD Center of Excellence (“CoE”). We may ask for an interview to discuss your proposal (done remotely). In such case, applicants will be provided with comments prior to the interview in order to prepare. The interview will only be focused on the technical feasibility and not on the scientific merit.
Assessment criteria
The scientific assessment is mainly done with respect to the potential impact in the specific field of science where the software will be used. Relatively less importance will be paid to the scientific track record of the applicants. Furthermore, the proposed software and/or implementation is evaluated relative to the state-of-the-art in the field, and if a successful effort would fill a gap in the currently available software on LUMI.

The technical assessment is mainly done with respect to the technical feasibility of porting the software to AMD GPUs and subsequently running on the LUMI supercomputer. These include both: 1) technical aspects of the software such as programming language, the use of libraries and frameworks, and the internal data structures and algorithms, and 2) the practical aspects such the difficulty of achieving the goal during the hackathon and the team’s ability to participate on-site. In particular, the software development track record of the applicant (or applicants), and the balance of skills in the final project team, which will include staff from the HPE CoE and the LUMI User Support Team, will be taken into account. Projected software speed-ups or preliminary benchmarks are helpful in the evaluation, but are not required.
Venue
The hackathon will be held at CSC – IT center for science in Espoo, Finland on April 17-21. It will start around lunchtime on the 17th and end at lunchtime on the 21st to allow for travel. The region is served by Helsinki-Vantaan airport. It takes approximately 1h to reach CSC from the airport. We do not provide accommodation.
Contact details
For any other specific information, please contact:

LUMI User Support
Detailed technical information about LUMI can be found in this blog post.

Introduction to Portable GPU Programming
2023-03-30 13:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York)
Join AMD for an interactive live webinar!
Experience the power and adaptability of AMD Instinct™ GPUs and ROCm™ software. Discover the ease of porting CUDA code to HIP with our easy to use ‘hipify’ tools that allow you to make your already written code effortlessly portable across AMD Instinct™ accelerators and other GPUs.
During this 60-minute event, attendees will receive an overview of the AMD Instinct™ M100 and MI200 series accelerators and the ROCm™ compilers, libraries, and tools. Attendees will then learn how to hipify existing code and program AMD GPUs with HIP and OpenMP 4.5. Stick around after the presentation for a live Q&A with our ROCm expert, Joe Schoonover. Sounds like something you would like to be a part of?

Thursday, March 30th, 2023, 1PM CT
Register Now

Digital Competence Centre projects 2022 presentation (II)
2023-03-27 13:00 - 15:00 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Webinar
The 10 initiatives taken up through the Digital Competence Centres in 2022 include interesting projects on virtual data assistance, Yoda, SRAM and textmining. SURF is organising three online information sessions to share the results.

In an interactive manner, each online session will cover three projects/pilots of pathways completed by 2022. Registration in advance is not necessary, you are cordially invited to join one or more sessions online!
Presentations 27 March

1. Textmining in Dutch-language medical text
UMC Utrecht, Erasmus MC, Radboud UMC and UMC Groningen

2. Building Containerised Workflow for FAIR Data Cube
Radboud UMC

3. Collaborative Oral History Research Environment (CORE)
University of Amsterdam

* Note: the presentations are in English
Background
The digitisation of science is noticeable in all fields and disciplines. The implementation plan “Investments in digital research infrastructure” describes how Digital Competence Centres (DCCs) are to play a role in pooling and sharing knowledge and expertise in the field of digitisation. SURF has an important role in technically facilitating and coordinating the secure, federated system to interconnect the DCCs and in supporting the DCCs in knowledge sharing. SURF supports the DCCs, including by issuing calls for proposals, organising a SURF Research Bootcamp and facilitating the DCC-IN network.
For whom?
All those interested in DCCs. Institutions not affiliated to SURF and other interested parties are also welcome to join!
Participate
Registration in advance is not necessary: you can join one or more online sessions. See the MS Teams link for the second session on 27 March on this page.
Contact
More background information? Email dcc-support@surf.nl.

Developer Conference: NVIDIA GTC - Addressing the AI Skills Gap
2023-03-22 14:00 - 15:00 UTC
Demand for AI and HPC programming skills is booming. As demand grows, a skill gap is forming.
Bring your questions to the panel “Addressing the AI Skills Gap” on March 22 at 2pm CET with DIGITALEUROPE, TechUK, MinnaLearn, BME and EuroCC at #GTC23 as we discuss the most in-demand skills in the market, and options for bridging the skills gap.

Demand for AI, accelerated computing, and HPC programming skills is booming. And as this demand grows, a notable skill gap is forming. If you’re a business leader who’s facing these issues or a developer planning next career steps, join this…
Speakers
Kevin McFall, Master Instructor, NVIDIA
Viivi Pitkanen, Co-founder & Head of Growth, MinnaLearn
Martina Blazkova, PhD, Senior Education and Training Officer, Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación
Bálint Gyires-Tóth, PhD, Associate Professor, Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Helena Lovegrove, Director of Operations and Projects, DIGITALEUROPE
Nimmi Patel, Head of Skills, Talent and Diversity, techUK
Industry: All Industries
Topic: Deep Learning – Frameworks
Wednesday, Mar 22 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM CET

Register >
GTC Developer Conference:
Explore Breakthroughs in AI, Accelerated Computing, and Beyond at GTC
The Conference for the Era of AI and the Metaverse

Your secrets are safe with us: Tooling for research with sensitive data
2023-03-21 00:00 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 3, Utrecht, Netherlands
Many areas of research deal with sensitive data that cannot be shared widely. They have to be protected due to privacy, intellectual property, or other reasons. In this event, we will discuss several projects, tools and techniques to work with sensitive data in research.
In the context of open science, research data are increasingly shared for reuse. When working with sensitive data, however, such sharing is often hampered due to privacy, intellectual property or other limitations due to the sensitive nature of the data. This limits the degree of reuse in research tremendously. More and more, however, solutions and strategies are being developed to circumvent these limitations.

The aim of this afternoon is to give an overview of current projects, tools and techniques to work safely with sensitive data. The afternoon will consist of short presentations and demos, with ample room for questions, and drinks afterwards.

Programme Tuesday March 21
Chair: Annette Langedijk

13:00-13:30 Doors open
13:30-13:40: Welcome (Matthijs van Otegem, Director University Library Utrecht)
Presentations and demo’s:

13:40-13:55 The Data Privacy Project (Dorien Huijser, Utrecht University)
13:55-14:20 Tools-to-Data (Joris van Zundert, Huygens Institute)
14:20-14:45 Federated learning (Esther Bron, Erasmus Medical Center, Health-RI)
14:45-15:15 Break
15:15-15:40 D3I – A platform for digital trace data donation (Laura van Boeschoten, Utrecht University)
15:40-16:05 Synthetic data (Erik-Jan van Kesteren, Utrecht University, ODISSEI SODA team)
16:05-16:30 Overview of privacy-preserving techniques (Freek Dijkstra, SURF)

16:30-17:00: Closing with drinks

For whom
The event is intended for research data support staff and researchers with an interest in working with sensitive research data. It will provide an opportunity to learn about existing initiatives and connect with similarly interested colleagues.
Organisation
SURF and Utrecht University.

More information & registrate

Digital Competence Centre projects 2022 presentation (I)
2023-02-28 15:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Webinar
The 10 initiatives taken up through the Digital Competence Centres in 2022 include interesting projects in the areas of virtual data assistance, Yoda, SRAM and textmining. SURF is organising three online information sessions in February, March and April to share the results.

In an interactive manner, each online session will cover three projects/pilots of pathways completed by 2022. Registration in advance is not necessary, you are cordially invited to join one or more sessions online!
Presentations 28 February

1. Research Cloud Community Engagement
Utrecht University, TU Eindhoven and Wageningen University

2. Research Software Directory: software in the shop window
Amsterdam UMC, Leiden University, Utrecht University and Netherlands eScience Center

3. Bootcamps: Towards Circular Science
Maastricht University

Background
The digitisation of science is noticeable in all fields and disciplines. The implementation plan “Investments in digital research infrastructure” describes how Digital Competence Centres (DCCs) are to play a role in pooling and sharing knowledge and expertise in the field of digitisation. SURF has an important role in technically facilitating and coordinating the secure, federated system to interconnect the DCCs and in supporting the DCCs in knowledge sharing. SURF supports the DCCs, including by issuing calls for proposals, organising a SURF Research Bootcamp and facilitating the DCC-IN network.
For whom?
All those interested in DCCs. Institutions not affiliated to SURF and other interested parties are also welcome to join!
Participation
Registration in advance is not necessary: you can join one or more online sessions. The MS Teams link for the first session on 28 February can be found on this page.
Follow the session via this link, Registration in advance is not necessary.
The second and third sessions will take place on 27 March and 26 April.
Contact
More background information? Email dcc-support@surf.nl.

Training: Introduction to supercomputing
2023-02-07 09:00 - 12:30 (Europe/Amsterdam) | Online
When you need to perform many calculations, or analyses that are too large for your own system, clusters and supercomputers provide the computing power you need. In this course, you will learn to work with the national supercomputer Snellius and the national computing cluster Lisa.
When you need to perform many calculations, or analyses that are too large for your own system, clusters and supercomputers provide the computing power you need. In this course, you will learn to work with the national supercomputer Snellius and the national computing cluster Lisa.
What will you learn in this training?
In this training you will do practical exercises to learn how to effectively use the national computing cluster Lisa and the national supercomputer Snellius and how to complete your tasks with minimal effort in the shortest possible time.
For whom?
Anyone who wants to know how to perform massive computing tasks.
The language of instruction is English.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of Unix shell is helpful.
Sign up here!
