In this newsletter:
- Application License Server Maintenance by IT on Feb. 4th
- RCAC meeting
- AI users survey
- Intel AI workshop
- Tip of the week: Cross compilation
- Follow us on Twitter
- Previous Announcements
- Previous Tips
Application License Server Maintenance by IT on Thursday, 4 February 2021, 8.00 PM to 4:00 AM 5 February
Due to a scheduled maintenance of the Application License Server by IT on Thursday, 4 February 2021, 8.00 PM to 4:00 AM next day, access to the below applications will be impacted on Shaheen and Neser:
Ansys, AtomistixToolKit (ATK), Converge, Eclipse, Intel Compilers, Material Studio, Mathematica, MATLAB, Tecplot and Totalview.
During these maintenance windows, you may face issues with Intel at compilation and error with the application at runtime.
RCAC meeting
The project submission deadline for the next RCAC meeting is 28 February 2021. Please note that the RCAC meetings are held once per month. Projects received on or before the submission deadline will be included in the agenda for the subsequent RCAC meeting.The detailed procedures, updated templates and forms are available here: https://www.hpc.kaust.edu.sa/account-applications
AI users survey
As you are aware, the GPU resources at KSL have been in high demand nearing major conference deadlines. For better management of the current resources and planning for future expansions/extensions, it is important for us to keep up with the changing demand in workloads running on these GPU resources. We have designed a GPU workload characterization user survey to capture the state of your workloads. Please spare some time and complete this survey. We also kindly request AI faculty members to circulate the survey link to your students, postdocs and research scientists. Maximizing the number of responses will help us make more informed decisions which serve you well in near and far future.
Intel AI workshop
KAUST Supercomputing Core Lab and Intel have organized an online envent, “Intel® AI Workshop” to have an indepth overview of the current status of AI ecosystem on Intel CPUs.
The workshop is planned for February 11th, 2021 from 10AM to 5PM and will be delivered online by two Intel experts. For abstract and agenda of this workshop please visit https://www.hpc.kaust.edu.sa/intel_ai2021
Please fill up this form to register for this online workshop. You will receive a confirmation email with the required details to join the workshops two days prior the event.
Tip of the week: Cross compilation
Most of software packages installed from source require 3 steps: (1) configure, (2) make ;and (3) make install.
On shaheen, the CPUs in most login nodes (CDLs) are Intel IvyBridge, which are different from the Intel Haswell in the compute nodes. Therefore, you are typically cross compiling to Haswell architecture, which happens automatically thanks to the module: craype-haswell (loaded by default)
There are two special situations a devleoper may face:
- While running compute or memory intensive codes is fobidden on login nodes, some devleopers may have basic code that needs to run pretty quickly on the login node itself. You will typically face an error message "Illegal Instruction" due to the incompatibility of the binary built for Haswell and run on IvyBridge CPUs. In this situation, you need to: module switch craype-haswell craype-ivybridge before compilation.
- Some software installations require at configure step to run a few sample codes, which may fail while running on the login nodes. In this situation, one solution is to perform all the installation steps on a compute node using an interactive session. Alternatively, you can contact us and gain access to a special login node with Haswell compatible architecture.
Follow us on Twitter
Follow all the latest news on HPC within the Supercomputing Lab and at KAUST, on Twitter @KAUST_HPC.
Previous Announcements
http://www.hpc.kaust.edu.sa/announcements/