National Computational Science Alliance offers web based MPI trainingChampaign 19 September 2000 The National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance) in the USA announced its is offering a new Web-based course on the Message Passing Interface (MPI).Each of the 13 sections in the MPI course offers a statement of objectives and a brief introduction. Most sections include examples and descriptions of routines as well as the most appropriate applications or algorithms. One case study is used throughout the course, building on the new materials introduced in each section. Self-tests in each section help users check their understanding of the material presented.
The new course was developed by the Alliance's Partners for Advanced
Computational Services (PACS) based on the results of Alliance user surveys
conducted in 1999 and 2000. In both surveys Alliance users said they were
interested in receiving Web-based training on MPI because Web-based training is
self-paced, convenient, and available at no cost to anyone with Internet access.
Staff at five PACS sites worked together to develop the training program: the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of
Illinois, University of New Mexico, Boston University, University of Kentucky,
and the Ohio Supercomputing Center (OSC). Leslie Southern at OSC led the
development effort.
MPI is a standard library of Fortran subroutines, or C language function calls,
that implement a message-passing programme, thereby making distributed computing
possible. With MPI, a programmer can write code that will work on any computing
system on which the MPI library is installed without having to make changes. MPI
programmes can be used and compiled on a wide variety of parallel computers with
either distributed or shared memory, such as the IBM SP2, the SGI Origin2000,
or a cluster of workstations.
The new MPI course uses WebCT, a Web-based course tool originally developed by
the University of British Columbia. The WebCT environment provides a variety of
on-line learning tools, including help, search tools, a course discussion space,
self-tests, and a glossary of terms. The course was extensively tested over the
summer, and additional materials were incorporated based on feedback from test
groups.
Southern noted that this asynchronous high-performance training builds on the
Alliance's concept of a Virtual Machine Room (VMR). The Alliance's VMR project
is an effort to bring together the computational and data resources of the
Alliance no matter what their physical locations. These resources are made
accessible through a common interface using interoperable component technologies
and tools. The user sees a single coherent system of Alliance resources that
appear to be managed by, and located at, one site.
"Our asynchronous training lets researchers control their training environment
from any place, at any time, and at their own pace", Southern said. "PACS is
pleased to answer the call from users expressed in the recent user survey for
such training and to provide our first course on the most commonly listed
topic—MPI."
Users can register for the course through the WebCT-HPC web site at
http://webct.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8900/.
Once registered, a user keeps the same login ID and password to take other
courses available on the site. All course materials are available from the home
page.
The National Computational Science Alliance is a partnership to prototype an
advanced computational infrastructure for the 21st century and includes more than
50 academic, government and industry research partners from across the United
States. The Alliance is one of two partnerships funded by the National Science
Foundation's Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI)
programme, and receives cost-sharing at partner institutions. NSF also supports
the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI), led
by the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is the leading-edge site for
the National Computational Science Alliance. NCSA is a leader in the development
and deployment of cutting-edge high-performance computing, networking, and
information technologies. The National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois,
the University of Illinois, industrial partners, and other federal agencies fund
NCSA.
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