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SNIC Training News Letter

No 98, 27 September 2019

– Published 27 September 2019

Topics of this issue:

  • Seminar by Philipp Schlatter: "SNIC and SNAC: Handling of large-scale computer time allocations in Sweden”, various times and locations
  • Training course: “Introduction to PDC" in Stockholm, 8 October 2019, 13:00-17:00
  • Training seminar: "Working with Python on Tetralith" in Stockholm, 16 October 2019, 10:30 - 15:00 
  • Training seminar: “Cluster architecture and job submission” in Lund, 17 October 2019, 12:30 - 14:00
  • Training seminar: “C3SE Introductory Seminar” in Gothenburg, 23 October 2019, 13:15 - 15:00
  • Training course: "Vasp - Basic Theory and Best Practices" in Umeå, 29 October 2019
  • Training course: “An introduction to shared memory parallel programming using OpenMP” in Gothenburg, 27 - 28 November 2019
  • User group meeting: “Gothenburg Region OpenFOAM User Group Meeting”, in Gothenburg, 20 November 2019
  • PDC Cafe, Tuesday September 10, 10-12:00, SeRC room, 5th floor Teknikringen 14


CodeRefinery related opportunities in Sweden, recommended by SNIC:

  • CodeRefinery Instructor training workshop in Stockholm, 4-5 November 2019, KTH Main Campus
  • CodeRefinery hackathon in Stockholm, 6-7 November 2019, KTH Main Campus


Attend training in the Nordics:

  • NeIC Nordic Training Calendar


Training overview:

  • SNIC training webpage


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Seminar by Philipp Schlatter: "SNIC and SNAC: Handling of large-scale computer time allocations in Sweden”, various times and locations


Times and locations - please check the relevant event pages for details and registration requirements:



In Sweden, SNIC (Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing) is responsible for providing large-scale computer resources for all academic users. There are three levels of grants: SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE. Whereas the former two are handled at the six centres individually, the LARGE applications are dealt with by the SNAC (Swedish National Allocation Committee) twice a year. 


In this talk, Philipp Schlatter (current chairperson of SNAC) will introduce the SNIC operation, and the specific procedures of how these large allocations are handled will be discussed. In addition, there is the possibility to ask questions about the required content of the applications, and best practice guidelines.


Relevant links:


Information on the speaker:  Philipp Schlatter, https://www.mech.kth.se/mech/info_staff.xhtml?ID=216


Further information will be available from the webpages of the relevant SNIC HPC centres and/or future editions of the newsletter



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Training course: “Introduction to PDC" in Stockholm, 8 October 2019, 13:00-17:00


This is an afternoon 4-hour hands-on course centered on how to use the systems that PDC is providing, and is a good starting point for people that want to get started with high performance computing (HPC) using PDC clusters.


The course will focus on basic and advanced methods for using PDC systems. It will cover some background, what clusters are available, applying for PDC resources, how to login to PDC, running software on different nodes, storing data on different file systems, compiling code, etc... 


Location: room 304, Teknikringen 14.

Time: 8 October 2019, 13:00-17:00


Note that if you wish to participate in the course, you need to have a PDC account. If you do not yet have a PDC account, please request an account at least one week before the course starts according to the instructions at 



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Training seminar: "Working with Python on Tetralith" in Stockholm, 16 October 2019, 10:30 - 15:00 


This training event will give an introduction to working with Python on the NSC Tetralith system. Please note: this is not a Python programming course. 


The topics include: Python usage basics, customizing your environment (e.g. pip, conda) and more advanced usage (e.g. jupyter). The training is intended to be an interactive/hands-on event that will also provide a forum for direct interactions with consultants from the Bolin Centre and NSC.




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Training seminar: “Cluster architecture and job submission” in Lund, 17 October 2019, 12:30 - 14:00


This event explains key features of a contemporary HPC cluster, with a focus on the systems deployed at Lunarc. It will explain the principles behind the job scheduler and how the scheduler can be used to accomplish your computational work in an efficient manner. 

The event is organised as an informal lunchtime seminar – you are welcome to bring your lunch along. It addresses users who have recently started using HPC systems and prospective users considering using an HPC system in the near future. 



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Training seminar: “C3SE Introductory Seminar” in Gothenburg, 23 October 2019, 13:15 - 15:00


The seminar describes how to work on the systems and introduces the provided toolset.  Work management and best practices are also discussed.  The event is intended for all new users, to get a comprehensive overview on the systems and how to get started with using them. 


This seminar will also be offered on 25 November.


For more information and registration see: https://www.c3se.chalmers.se/



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Training course: "Vasp - Basic Theory and Best Practices" in Umeå, 29 October 2019


This one day course will start by looking at the basic theory, then go on to setting up input scripts for VASP. We will look at general recommendations for common methodologies used, some common issues when setting up a simulation, and also at running VASP on HPC2N. In addition, there will be a hands-on.


For more information and registration, see: https://www.hpc2n.umu.se/events/courses/vasp-fall-2019



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Training course: “An introduction to shared memory parallel programming using OpenMP”, Gothenburg, 27 - 28 November 2019


OpenMP provides an efficient method to write parallel programs in C, C++ and Fortran.  OpenMP programs are suitable for execution on shared memory architectures such as modern multi core systems or a single compute node of the HPC clusters deployed by Lunarc and within SNIC.

This course will introduce participants to the shared-memory model for parallel programming and the OpenMP application-programming interface.  In many cases OpenMP allows an existing serial program to be upgraded incrementally, starting with the parallelisation of the most time-consuming parts of the code.  Typically OpenMP programs are easily ported from one shared memory multi processor system to another one. 


For full information and registration visit the webpage:  https://www.c3se.chalmers.se/news/omp-2019/



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User group meeting: “Gothenburg Region OpenFOAM User Group Meeting”, in Gothenburg, 20 November 2019


The purpose of the meeting is to bring together people working with OpenFOAM to get to know each other and share experiences.  It is in particular a good occasion for OpenFOAM users at the SNIC resources to meet and learn from each other.  The meeting is free of charge and open to anyone (Gothenburg, Sweden, Europe etc.).  There is a maximum number of attendees.



Registration by mail to: hakan.nilsson@chalmers.se  SNIC users should mention that they are SNIC users. 



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PDC Cafe, Tuesday October 16, 10-12:00, SeRC room, 5th floor Teknikringen 14


PDC welcomes users to an informal "PDC Cafe". You can drop by, have fika, meet HPC experts, discuss problems and get useful advice. If there's anything that you think could be improved either in your own scripts, workflows or codes, or in the services that PDC provides, please drop by and discuss it with us, we would love to help! This is the place to get stuff done, so bring a laptop.


Suggestions for issues you can discuss:


• How to improve your run scripts

• Help with scripting

• Help with programming and software management

• Help with project organization and data management

• Help with Linux stuff

• How to improve performance of your calculations

• “Papercuts”: things that annoy you and how we can fix that

• How to improve services

• Project ideas

• Learn about cool services that you may not know yet


If you would like to discuss a problem that you think might be somewhat more involved and/or specialised (e.g. advanced programming issues or questions on specific codes which require domain expertise) please get in touch before the event (by sending an email to kthw@kth.se) so that we can prepare.


For more information, please visit the event page: https://www.pdc.kth.se/about/events/general/pdc-cafe-on-16-october-1.927063

Please also register if you wish to attend: http://www.kth.se/form/5d8bfb969c463d042923c197



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CodeRefinery related opportunities in Sweden, recommended by SNIC


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CodeRefinery Instructor training workshop in Stockholm, 4-5 November 2019, KTH Main Campus

Learning to teach tools and best practices in research software development


Do you (want to) teach researchers or independent students best practices of scientific software? Are you teaching a university course and would like to include aspects of best practices in software engineering in the course? Or would you simply like to educate your friends and colleagues in how to write more reusable, reproducible and better documented code?


If you answered yes to any of the above questions, we welcome you to join the first CodeRefinery instructor training workshop! This workshop will focus on how to teach technical topics (e.g. version control with Git, automated testing or programming languages) in general, and CodeRefinery lessons in particular. We will cover key pedagogical ideas and teaching methods, and what you need to know in order to teach the CodeRefinery lessons. 


For further information and registration, please visit: https://coderefinery.org/events/2019-11-04-stockholm/



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CodeRefinery hackathon in Stockholm, 6-7 November 2019, KTH Main Campus

Building a Nordic community of research software engineers


Welcome to the first CodeRefinery hackathon!


The idea behind this event is to bring together people who are working with code and/or data in research, in an informal environment where ideas can be exchanged, expertise shared and real work done!


What you can do at the hackathon:


  • Bring your own code or data and get suggestions/help on how to better organize, test, document, and share your code.
  • Participate at a ReproHack where we try to reproduce a nominated paper and learn how to make software papers better reproducible. You can nominate your own paper and then you get feedback about how to improve your own work.
  • Work on new or existing CodeRefinery lessons.
  • Share your expertise with others and learn many new tricks and tools from others.


For further information and registration, please visit: https://coderefinery.org/events/2019-11-06-stockholm/



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Attend training in the Nordics:


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NeIC Nordic Training Calendar:


The NeIC Nordic Training Calendar gives an overview on eScience related training throughout the Nordics.  Have a look at https://neic.no/training/#neic-training-calendar for an overview on training in Nordic partner countries that is typically accessible to Swedish academic research.  The page also provides direct links to training portals of the national e-Science provides in the Nordics.



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SNIC training webpage


In addition to these news letters we also provide a SNIC training webpage: http://docs.snic.se/wiki/Training 


This webpage currently gives an overview on all courses currently planed.  It provides links to more information and the actual registration.  The webpage also includes training which is expected to be mostly of interest to individual SNIC centres.  Information will be added to this page as it becomes available.