Advanced User Support in the Swedish National HPC Infrastructure May 13, 2013NeIC Workshop: Center Operations best practices

Some history

Strategic Research Areas “e-Science” 2009

2010 approved

2010 “Transforming NSC and PDC from HPC hardware supporters to e-Science enablers is another important mission. The main mechanism for this will be a substantial increase at the centers of application experts and software engineers working in the SeRC e-Science communities.”

2010 Strategic Research Areas Infra structure funding Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing

e-Science Centre

2010 First Implementation Phase Project

2010 application experts are financed ( ): For working with advanced national user support Computational materials science GRID competence Bioinformatics Biomolecular simulations Electronic structure calculations Fluid dynamics and turbulence Additional AE financing for working with PRACE projects

2010 First national application expert meeting! Organized by NSC Held in Linköping on December 2-3, 2010 Two main points on the agenda: 1. Short presentations by participants 2. Potential common initiatives 18 ParticipantsAll SNIC centers were represented National support queue for application experts Knowledge base

Positions are being filled 2011 decides on additional AE funding ( ): For working with advanced national user support Computational materials science GRID competence Bioinformatics Biomolecular simulations Electronic structure calculations Fluid dynamics and turbulence Climate research

2011 A SNIC application expert coordinator is appointed 2nd National AE meeting – May 5-6, PDC 3rd National AE meeting – September 7-8, Lunarc Work on the AE community document initiated Further discussions regarding the knowledge base 18 ParticipantsAll SNIC centers were represented 20 Participants Light revision of the AE community document Presentation of a revised knowledge base implementation All SNIC centers were represented Discussions regarding a web form to front the application-support RT queue

2012 4th National AE meeting – March 14-15, UPPMAX 5th National AE meeting – September 19-20, C3SE Guests from KISTI in South Korea Exchange of experiences with Interlagos 25 ParticipantsAll SNIC centers were represented 24 Participants Guests from Chalmers Computer Graphics Research Group Exchange of experiences with profilers and performance analysis tools All SNIC centers were represented

2013 6th National AE meeting – March 6-7, NSC Guests from Cendio and C-Research at Linköping University Exchange of experiences with remote visualization 21 ParticipantsAll SNIC centers were represented 7th National AE meeting – planned for October 2-3, HPC2N Guests from the Nordic countries?!

2013 Status Better development environment and more development tools Significantly increased and more varied software stack Higher level of support for several widely used programs/codes Several advanced trainings regarding code development Several ongoing projects with a variety of objectives and scopes

2013 (Human eCloud) Not reached critical mass of staff yet! Very limited elasticity for taking on (even small) new projects Application expert support Application expert career path? “Salary evolution” Status Advanced support services

Coordinated efforts

The AE community document ca. 5 A4 pages thoughts visions ideas about and by application experts

The Role of Application Experts in the Swedish e-Science Infrastructure Date: October 4, 2011 The Role of Application Experts in the Swedish e-Science Infrastructure Date: October 4, 2011 Time and project prioritization Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the center director to assess what a reasonable time-commitment is for a given project. Is it for example okay for the application expert to allocate three, six, or more months to a given project? If many application experts become available for long-term commitments to code development or other research projects, then a formal procedure for obtaining that type of application expert support may have to be set up. For now, however, we propose that long-term commitments are established, handled, and prioritized by the application expert and the center director of the site where the application expert is employed. Time and project prioritization Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the center director to assess what a reasonable time-commitment is for a given project. Is it for example okay for the application expert to allocate three, six, or more months to a given project? If many application experts become available for long-term commitments to code development or other research projects, then a formal procedure for obtaining that type of application expert support may have to be set up. For now, however, we propose that long-term commitments are established, handled, and prioritized by the application expert and the center director of the site where the application expert is employed.

Role and purpose of the application expert community The general role of the application expert community should be to provide advanced support to e-Science researchers. However, exactly what constitutes advanced support will likely vary significantly among the various e-Science research fields and communities. Examples of advanced support could include: tuning and optimizing code parallelizing code compiling, installing, and benchmarking code helping with visualization techniques and tools helping with workflow for analysis of simulation output and data management helping with selection of code given a specific scientific question creating tutorials and manuals organizing workshops Role and purpose of the application expert community The general role of the application expert community should be to provide advanced support to e-Science researchers. However, exactly what constitutes advanced support will likely vary significantly among the various e-Science research fields and communities. Examples of advanced support could include: tuning and optimizing code parallelizing code compiling, installing, and benchmarking code helping with visualization techniques and tools helping with workflow for analysis of simulation output and data management helping with selection of code given a specific scientific question creating tutorials and manuals organizing workshops

The national SNIC knowledge base The idea is that basic support for any given scientific application can be handled by adding information to the knowledge base. Hence, application experts should provide information, help, tips-and-tricks, etc. regarding the most widely used computational tools and scientific applications within their field of expertise on the national SNIC knowledge base. There is also a SNIC internal wiki, which should be used to share information with other SNIC personnel regarding how to compile, install, and run a given application. The internal wiki could also be used for documenting the resource requirements for major applications. The national SNIC knowledge base The idea is that basic support for any given scientific application can be handled by adding information to the knowledge base. Hence, application experts should provide information, help, tips-and-tricks, etc. regarding the most widely used computational tools and scientific applications within their field of expertise on the national SNIC knowledge base. There is also a SNIC internal wiki, which should be used to share information with other SNIC personnel regarding how to compile, install, and run a given application. The internal wiki could also be used for documenting the resource requirements for major applications.

The national application-support RT queue Application experts should commit to monitor the application-support RT queue and work with cases that fall within their field of expertise. Some cases may be handled by providing some application specific insight that enable “first-line” support or system administrators to solve the case, whereas other cases may require substantial efforts. In the latter case, it is not required that the support case receives highest priority immediately as long as it is communicated to the requestor when time can be allocated to looking at the case. The application-support address will also serve as one of the points of contact for proposing projects for application experts to work on. The national application-support RT queue Application experts should commit to monitor the application-support RT queue and work with cases that fall within their field of expertise. Some cases may be handled by providing some application specific insight that enable “first-line” support or system administrators to solve the case, whereas other cases may require substantial efforts. In the latter case, it is not required that the support case receives highest priority immediately as long as it is communicated to the requestor when time can be allocated to looking at the case. The application-support address will also serve as one of the points of contact for proposing projects for application experts to work on.

pdc-support“VASP” application- support “VASP”

Overview of SNIC resources: Hardware Software Human Projects

Examples