# NERSC Weekly Email, Week of May 9, 2022<a name="top"></a> # ## Contents ## - [Summary of Upcoming Events and Key Dates](#dates) ## [NERSC Status](#section1) ## - [NERSC Operations Continue as Berkeley Lab Reopens, with Minimal Changes](#curtailment) ## [This Week's Events and Deadlines](#section2) ## - [Call for Speakers: OpenACC & Hackathons 2022 Summit](#oaccsummit) - [IDEAS-ECP Webinar on "Acquisition and Analysis of Times Series of Satellite Data in the Cloud - Lessons from the Field" on May 11](#ecpwebinar2) - [Training on Coding for GPUs Using Standard Fortran on Friday](#fortrangpus) - [Application Deadline for the SC22 Student Cluster Competition Due Saturday!](#scc) ## [Perlmutter](#section3) ## - [Perlmutter Machine Status](#perlmutter) - [(UPDATE) Integration of Perlmutter Phase 2 Will Minimize System Downtime](#pmintegration) ## [Updates at NERSC ](#section4) ## - [Please Take the Machine Learning at NERSC Survey!](#mlsurvey) - [Form for Superfacility API Tokens Now Available!](#snforms) - [Allocation Reductions for Underusing Projects on May 19](#allocred) - [E4S 21.11 Software Stack on Perlmuter Rebuilt for Programming Environment Updates](#e4s) ## [Calls for Participation](#section5) ## - [Attention Students: Apply for a Summer Internship at NERSC!](#interns) - [(NEW) Call for Participation: Third International Symposium on Checkpointing for Supercomputing](#supercheck) ## [Upcoming Training Events ](#section6) ## - [2022 ALCF Computational Performance Workshop May 24-26](#alcf_workshop) - [(NEW) Webinar on LLVM/OpenMP Ecosystem -- Optimizations, Features, & Outlook, May 25](#llvmomp) - [Attention New Users: Register for June 9 "Introduction to NERSC Resources"](#intronersc) - [Attention Novice Parallel Programmers: Sign up for June 14 "Crash Course in Supercomputing"](#crashcourse) ## [NERSC News ](#section7) ## - [Come Work for NERSC!](#careers) - [Upcoming Outages](#outages) - [About this Email](#about) ## Summary of Upcoming Events and Key Dates <a name="dates"/></a> ## May 2022 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 *9* 10 *11* 12 *13**14* 9 May OpenACC Hackathons Summit Subs Due [1] 11 May IDEAS-ECP Monthly Webinar [2] 13 May Standard Fortran for GPUs Training [3] 14 May Student Cluster Comp Due Date [4] 15 16 17 *18**19* 20 21 18 May Cori Monthly Maintenance [5] 19 May Allocation Reductions [6] 22 23 *24-*25*-26* 27 28 24-26 May ALCF Workshop [7] 25 May ALCF LLVM/OpenMP Ecosystem Webinar [8] 29 *30* 31 30 May Memorial Day Holiday [9] June 2022 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 *9* 10 11 9 Jun Intro to NERSC Resources [10] 12 13 *14**15* 16 17 18 14 Jun Crash Course in Supercomputing [11] 15 Jun Cori Monthly Maintenance [5] 19 *20* 21 *22* 23 24 25 20 Jun Juneteenth Holiday [12] 22 Jun SpinUp Workshop [13] 26 27 28 29 30 July 2022 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 *4* 5 6 7 8 9 4 Jul Independence Day Holiday [14] 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 *20* 21 22 23 20 Jul Cori Monthly Maintenance [5] 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1. **May 9, 2022**: [OpenACC & Hackathons 2022 Summit submissions due](#oaccsummit) 2. **May 11, 2022**: [IDEAS-ECP Monthly Webinar](#ecpwebinar2) 3. **May 13, 2022**: [Training on Coding for GPUs using Standard Fortran](#fortrangpus) 4. **May 14, 2022**: [SC22 Student Cluster Competition applications due](#scc) 5. **May 18, June 15, & July 20, 2022**: Cori Monthly Maintenance 6. **May 19, 2022**: [Allocation Reductions](#allocred) 7. **May 24-26, 2022**: [ALCF Computational Performance Workshop](#alcf_workshop) 8. **May 25, 2022**: [Webinar on LLVM/OpenMP Ecosystem](#llvmomp) 9. **May 30, 2022**: Memorial Day Holiday (No Consulting or Account Support) 10. **June 9, 2022**: [Intro to NERSC Resources](#intronersc) 11. **June 14, 2022**: [Crash Course in Supercomputing](#crashcourse) 12. **June 20, 2022**: Juneteenth Holiday (No Consulting or Account Support) 13. **June 22, 2022**: SpinUp Workshop 14. **July 4, 2022**: Independence Day Holiday (No Consulting or Account Support) 15. All times are **Pacific Time zone** - **Upcoming Planned Outage Dates** (see [Outages section](#outages) for more details) - No outages planned this week - **Other Significant Dates** - **August 3-4, 2022**: OpenACC and Hackathons 2022 Summit - **August 10, October 5, & November 30, 2022**: SpinUp Workshops - **August 17, September 21, & October 19, 2022**: Cori Monthly Maintenance Window - **August 26, 2022**: [Submissions due for SuperCheck-SC22](#supercheck) - **September 5, 2022**: Labor Day Holiday (No Consulting or Account Support) - **November 14, 2022**: [SuperCheck-SC22 Workshop](https://supercheck.lbl.gov) - **November 24-25, 2022**: Thanksgiving Holiday (No Consulting or Account Support) - **December 23, 2022-January 2, 2023**: Winter Shutdown (Limited Consulting and Account Support) ([back to top](#top)) --- ## NERSC Status <a name="section1"/></a> ## ### NERSC Operations Continue as Berkeley Lab Reopens, with Minimal Changes <a name="curtailment"/></a> Berkeley Lab, where NERSC is located, is beginning to welcome employees back on-site following a two-year absence. NERSC remains in operation, with the majority of NERSC staff continuing to work remotely, and staff essential to operations onsite. We do not expect any disruptions to our operations in the next few months as the site reopens. You can continue to expect regular online consulting and account support as well as schedulable online appointments. Trainings continue to be held online. Regular maintenances on the systems continue to be performed while minimizing onsite staff presence, which could result in longer downtimes than would occur under normal circumstances. Because onsite staffing remains minimal, we request that you continue to refrain from calling NERSC Operations except to report urgent system issues. For **current NERSC systems status**, please see the online [MOTD](https://www.nersc.gov/live-status/motd/) and [current known issues](https://docs.nersc.gov/current/) webpages. ([back to top](#top)) --- ## This Week's Events and Deadlines <a name="section2"/></a> ## ### Call for Speakers: OpenACC & Hackathons 2022 Summit <a name="oaccsummit"/></a> The OpenACC organization is holding its annual conference, **OpenACC and Hackathons 2022 Summit**, online August 3-4, 2022. The conference has a public Call for Speakers. The goal is to showcase not only leading research accelerated by OpenACC directives-based programming model, but impactful work being done through the Hackathon program and across laboratories, research institutions, and supercomputing centers worldwide being done in any GPU programming language. Talk topics include a focus on traditional HPC, AI for Science, and the application of HPC plus AI, which is becoming an increasingly important area of exploration, where predictive AI modeling can complement classic HPC solutions to offer more data analytic-based solutions for scientific applications. This would be a great opportunity to share your research with the global community of developers and researchers. If you are interested, please submit your talk proposal at <https://www.openacc-and-hackathons-summit.org/s/> for the Review Committee to consider. The deadline for submissions is **TODAY, May 9th, 2022**. Decisions for accepted talks are expected by early June. ### IDEAS-ECP Webinar on "Acquisition and Analysis of Times Series of Satellite Data in the Cloud - Lessons from the Field" on May 11 <a name="ecpwebinar2"/></a> The May webinar in the [Best Practices for HPC Software Developers](http://ideas-productivity.org/events/hpc-best-practices-webinars/) series is entitled "Acquisition and Analysis of Times Series of Satellite Data in the Cloud - Lessons from the Field" and will take place this **Wednesday, May 11, at 10:00am Pacific Time**. In this webinar, Marisol Garcia-Reyes (Farallon Institute) will discuss lessons learned in making and teaching a tutorial to potential new users on how to acquire, synthesize and analyze satellite and satellite-based time series of data, while learning and using Python and cloud advances in the process. There is no cost to attend, but registration is required. Please register at <https://www.exascaleproject.org/event/temporalanalysis/>. ### Training on Coding for GPUs Using Standard Fortran on Friday <a name="fortrangpus"/></a> CUDA C++, CUDA Fortran, and OpenACC are highly successful approaches to GPU programming, but wouldn't it be even better to write an application capable of running on GPUs and multicore CPUs out of the box, without any additional APIs? Join us for the second event in a series covering how ISO C++ and ISO Fortran can be used as a portable solution to parallel programming targeting both GPUs and CPUs. This online-only training given by NVIDIA will take place from 10-11 am (Pacific time) this Friday, May 13. For more information and to register, please see <https://www.nersc.gov/users/training/events/coding-for-gpus-using-standard-fortran-may2022>. ### Application Deadline for the SC22 Student Cluster Competition Due Saturday! <a name="scc"/></a> Thinking about forming a team to participate in the [SC22](https://sc22.supercomputing.org/) [Student Cluster Competition](https://sc22.supercomputing.org/program/studentssc/student-cluster-competition/)? The competition is a great way to introduce undergraduate college and high school students to the challenge and excitement of working in HPC. In a highly-competitive 48-hour contest, teams assemble their own HPC cluster -- within a power limit -- on the exhibit floor, and race to complete a real-world workload across a series of applications and impress HPC industry judges. See <https://studentclustercompetition.us/> for photos of past contests, and <https://sc22.supercomputing.org/program/studentssc/student-cluster-competition/> for more information and to apply. Applications close this Saturday, May 14! ([back to top](#top)) --- ## Perlmutter <a name="section3"/></a> ## ### Perlmutter Machine Status <a name="perlmutter"/></a> The initial phase of the Perlmutter supercomputer is in the NERSC machine room, running user jobs. We have added many early users onto the machine. We hope to add even more users soon. Anyone interested in using Perlmutter may apply using the [Perlmutter Access Request Form](https://nersc.servicenowservices.com/nav_to.do?uri=%2Fcom.glideapp.servicecatalog_cat_item_view.do%3Fv%3D1%26sysparm_id%3D7155797e1b23f490263aa82eac4bcbd7%26sysparm_link_parent%3De15706fc0a0a0aa7007fc21e1ab70c2f%26sysparm_catalog%3De0d08b13c3330100c8b837659bba8fb4%26sysparm_catalog_view%3Dcatalog_default%26sysparm_view%3Dcatalog_default). The second phase of the machine, consisting of CPU-only nodes, has almost completely arrived. We will begin integrating the two phases of the system shortly, under an integration plan that will minimize the amount of time the entire system is down. This newsletter section will be updated each week with the latest Perlmutter status. ### (UPDATE) Integration of Perlmutter Phase 2 Will Minimize System Downtime <a name="pmintegration"/></a> All cabinets for the second phase of Perlmutter have arrived or will arrive soon. The Phase 2 nodes need to be added to the system, and this integration process has been designed to minimize system downtime for users. You may see the number of nodes available continue to fluctuate, but we expect to be able to keep at least 500 Phase-1 nodes available to users throughout the process. While we will keep Perlmutter available as much as possible, it is not yet a production system so there are no uptime guarantees. ([back to top](#top)) --- ## Updates at NERSC <a name="section4"/></a> ## ### Please Take the Machine Learning at NERSC Survey! <a name="mlsurvey"/></a> NERSC is conducting a survey of scientific researchers who are developing and using machine-learning (ML) models for scientific problems. We want to better understand users' current and future ML ecosystem and computational needs for development, training, and deployment of models. Your feedback is critical to help us optimize Perlmutter and future systems for ML capability and performance. Please take the survey at <https://forms.gle/1CJ9x2ndXTfjsYfx9>. ### Form for Superfacility API Tokens Now Available! <a name="snforms"/></a> A new form is now available at the NERSC Helpdesk to request a long-lived Superfacility API token. These tokens are granted only in specific circumstances to support automated workflows, and require a strong security model. More information can be found in the web documentation: <https://docs.nersc.gov/services/sfapi/>. ### Allocation Reductions for Underusing Projects on May 19 <a name="allocred"/></a> Twice annually, NERSC performs allocation reductions on projects in the DOE Mission Science category (this includes the vast majority of projects). ALCC, Director's Reserve, Exploratory, and Educational projects are exempt from this process. The allocation reduction process takes unused allocation from projects not using them and allows DOE program managers to redistribute that time to other projects. In 2022, only CPU Node hours will be impacted. PIs and PI proxies may request exemptions, at least one week before the reduction date. The first allocation reductions will occur on **Thursday, May 19, 2022**. A second set of reductions will occur on September 15, 2022. For more information, including how much allocation will be removed, please see <https://www.nersc.gov/users/accounts/allocations/allocation-reductions>. ### E4S 21.11 Software Stack on Perlmuter Rebuilt for Programming Environment Updates <a name="e4s"/></a> The [E4S software stack](https://docs.nersc.gov/applications/e4s/perlmutter/21.11/) on Perlmutter has been rebuilt to support the new updated programming environment defaults on Perlmutter. In total 132 packages have been built using either GCC version 11.2.0 or NVHPC version 21.11 compilers. The software stack can be accessed via `module load e4s/21.11-tcl` or `module load e4s/21.11-lmod`. ([back to top](#top)) --- ## Calls for Participation <a name="section5"/></a> ## ### Attention Students: Apply for a Summer Internship at NERSC! <a name="interns"/></a> Are you an undergraduate or graduate student looking for a summer internship opportunity? Consider applying for a summer internship at NERSC! NERSC hosts a number of paid internships on a variety of topics every year. Please check out the growing [list of internship projects](https://www.nersc.gov/research-and-development/internships/) on our website. If you're interested in a project, reach out to the appropriate point of contact directly with your CV/resume. ### (NEW) Call for Participation: Third International Symposium on Checkpointing for Supercomputing <a name="supercheck"/></a> You are invited to participate in the Third International Symposium on Checkpointing for Supercomputing (SuperCheck-SC22), which will be held on November 14, 2022, in conjunction with SC22. The workshop will feature the latest work in checkpoint/restart research, tools development, and production use. Topics of interest for the workshop include but are not limited to: - Application-level checkpointing: APIs to define critical states, techniques to capture critical states (e.g., efficient serialization) - Transparent/system-level checkpointing: techniques to capture state of devices and accelerators (CPUs, GPUs, network interfaces, etc.) - I/O and storage solutions that leverage heterogeneous storage to persist checkpoints at scale - Checkpoint size-reduction techniques (compression, deduplication) - Alternative techniques that avoid persisting checkpoints to storage (e.g., erasure coding) - Synchronous vs. asynchronous checkpointing strategies - Multi-level and hybrid strategies combining application-level, system-level, transparent checkpointing on heterogeneous hardware - Application-specific techniques combined with checkpointing (e.g., ABFT) - Performance evaluation and reproducibility, study of real failures and their recovery - Research on optimal checkpointing interval, C/R-aware job scheduling and resource management - Experience with traditional use cases of checkpointing on novel platforms - New use cases of checkpointing beyond resilience - Support on HPC systems (e.g., resource scheduling, system utilization, batch system integration, best practices, etc.) The call for participation is available at: <https://supercheck.lbl.gov/call-for-participation>. Submissions are due **August 26, 2022.** ([back to top](#top)) --- ## Upcoming Training Events <a name="section6"/></a> ## ### 2022 ALCF Computational Performance Workshop May 24-26 <a name="alcf_workshop"/></a> The 2022 ALCF Computational Performance Workshop will be help from 8am to 3pm Pacific Time on Tuesday-Thursday, May 24-26, 2022. This will be an online-only event, and is open to NERSC users. The workshop is designed to help you boost application performance and achieve computational readiness on ALCF systems. The performance tools and topics covered at the workshop are transferrable to NERSC systems too. For more information, and to register, see <https://www.nersc.gov/users/training/events/alcf-computational-performance-workshop-may2022/>. ### (NEW) Webinar on LLVM/OpenMP Ecosystem -- Optimizations, Features, & Outlook, May 25 <a name="llvmomp"/></a> A webinar on the LLVM/OpenMP ecosystem is being offered on Wednesday, May 25 as part of the ALCF Developer Sessions (which are also open to NERSC users). NERSC users may be interested because the LLVM compiler with OpenMP offload support is available on the Cori GPU nodes and will become available on the Perlmutter GPU nodes soon. In this webinar, Argonne's Johannes Doerfert talks about the dramatic changes in the LLVM/OpenMP environment over the last few years, and discuss the significance beyond OpenMP. The goal of the talk is to introduce compilers, parallelism, and OpenMP in particular, as approachable technologies with often underestimated potential. For more information, including how to register, please see <https://www.nersc.gov/users/training/events/the-llvmopenmp-ecosystem-optimizations-features-and-outlook-may2022/>. ### Attention New Users: Register for June 9 "Introduction to NERSC Resources" <a name="intronersc"/></a> In collaboration with the Berkeley Lab Computational Sciences Summer Student Program, NERSC is again offering an introductory class on NERSC resources on June 9. This class will provide an informative overview acquainting students with the basics of NERSC computational systems and its programming environment. Topics include systems overview, connecting to NERSC, software environment, file systems and data management/transfer, and available data analytics software and services. Details on how to compile applications and run jobs on NERSC systems will be presented, including hands-on exercises on Cori. Training accounts will be provided for students who have not yet set up a NERSC account. For more information and to register, please see <https://www.nersc.gov/users/training/events/introduction-to-nersc-resources-jun2022/>. ### Attention Novice Parallel Programmers: Sign up for June 14 "Crash Course in Supercomputing" <a name="crashcourse"/></a> In collaboration with the Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences Summer Student Program, NERSC is again offering the "Crash Course in Supercomputing", open to NERSC users as well as Berkeley Lab summer students, on June 14. In this course, students will learn to write parallel programs that can be run on a supercomputer. We begin by discussing the concepts of parallelization before introducing MPI and OpenMP, the two leading parallel programming libraries. Hands-on exercises reinforce the concepts learned in the course. Training accounts will be provided for students who have not yet set up a NERSC account. For more information and to register, please see <https://www.nersc.gov/users/training/events/crash-course-in-supercomputing-jun2022/>. ([back to top](#top)) --- ## NERSC News <a name="section7"/></a> ## ### Come Work for NERSC! <a name="careers"/></a> NERSC currently has several openings for postdocs, system administrators, and more! If you are looking for new opportunities, please consider the following openings: - [Technical and User Support Engineer](http://m.rfer.us/LBLPYs4pz): Assist users with account setup, login issues, project membership, and other requests. - [NESAP for Simulations Postdoctoral Fellow](http://m.rfer.us/LBLRUa4lS): Collaborate with computational and domain scientists to enable extreme-scale scientific simulations on NERSC's Perlmutter supercomputer. - [Software Integration Engineer](http://m.rfer.us/LBLqTa4jD): Help continue the development of a Continuous Integration infrastructure to support software installation and testing on NERSC resources. - [Linux Systems Administrator & DevOps Engineer](http://m.rfer.us/LBLUPg4hf): Help to build and manage container and virtual machine platforms and high-performance storage that complement the supercomputing environment. - [Cyber Security Engineer](http://m.rfer.us/LBLa_B4hg): Join the team to help protect NERSC resources from malicious and unauthorized activity. - [NESAP for Data Postdoctoral Fellow](http://m.rfer.us/LBLXEt4g5): Collaborate with computational and domain scientists to enable extreme-scale scientific data analysis on NERSC's Perlmutter supercomputer. - [Machine Learning Postdoctoral Fellow](http://m.rfer.us/LBL2sf4cR): Collaborate with computational and domain scientists to enable machine learning at scale on NERSC's Perlmutter supercomputer. - [HPC Performance Engineer](http://m.rfer.us/LBLsGT43z): Join a multidisciplinary team of computational and domain scientists to speed up scientific codes on cutting-edge computing architectures. (**Note:** You can browse all our job openings on the [NERSC Careers](https://lbl.referrals.selectminds.com/page/nersc-careers-85) page, and all Berkeley Lab jobs at <https://jobs.lbl.gov>.) We know that NERSC users can make great NERSC employees! We look forward to seeing your application. ### Upcoming Outages <a name="outages"/></a> - **Cori** - 05/18/22 07:00-20:00 PDT, Scheduled Maintenance - 06/15/22 07:00-20:00 PDT, Scheduled Maintenance - 07/20/22 07:00-20:00 PDT, Scheduled Maintenance - 08/17/22 07:00-20:00 PDT, Scheduled Maintenance - **HPSS Archive (User)** - 05/11/22 09:00-11:00 PDT, Scheduled Maintenance - Engineers will be performing switch rezoning. No user impact is expected. - **Spin** - 05/10/22 13:00-17:00 PDT, Scheduled Maintenance - Scheduled maintenance. Rancher 2 workloads and the Rancher 2 UI will be unavailable briefly (1-2 min) at least once within the window for upgrades to system software. Visit <http://my.nersc.gov/> for latest status and outage information. ### About this Email <a name="about"/></a> You are receiving this email because you are the owner of an active account at NERSC. This mailing list is automatically populated with the email addresses associated with active NERSC accounts. In order to remove yourself from this mailing list, you must close your account, which can be done by emailing <accounts@nersc.gov> with your request. _______________________________________________ Users mailing list Users@nersc.gov