APPLICATIONS

By Erika Strebel -- NCSA hosted a three-day workshop for new users of the TeraGrid, a nationwide network of high-performance computing resources and institutions. Lasting from Sept. 23 to Sept. 25, the workshop brought together 36 researchers from institutions around the country, including several minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) institutions. The National Science Founation EPSCoR program aims to catalyze research at institutions that have historically received less research and development funding. MSIs include historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges and universities. The main goals of the workshop were to cover the basics of accessing TeraGrid resources and to offer new and potential users an opportunity to get some face-to-face interaction, says Sandie Kappes, the workshop's organizer and leader of NCSA's training group. "It went great," says Kappes. "There was a lot of enthusiasm and I feel that the participants left with a good understanding of TeraGrid resources and the knowledge to begin using them. Many of the participants did not have a TeraGrid allocation but because of their experience at the workshop indicated they would soon apply for one." Shawn Duan, associate professor of mechanical engineering at South Dakota State University, says he couldn't decide what part of the workshop was the most helpful. "I'm a new user," he says. "Basically, everything is important and everything is new!" Participants learned how to apply for and manage their account and modify their code for use on TeraGrid resources. The workshop also covered topics like debugging techniques, the basics of using Unix, how to use MPI and OpenMP to deploy their codes, and multi-core performance. Duan says he is excited to apply what he has learned at the workshop to his research. "We have a supercomputer in-house but not so powerful as what is available here," he says. "When I get back, I'm going to start applying for an account." Other participants already had extensive experience with TeraGrid. Mamoud Sadjadi, associate professor of computer science at Florida International University, brought four graduate students to the workshop. "We are a minority-serving institution," he says. "We want to expose (students) to top-notch resources nationwide so they can get an opportunity to advance their research and become part of the bigger picture." Support for the workshop was provided by NCSA, TeraGrid, and NSF's Broadening Participation in Computing Program. More information about the workshop is available online: training.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Workshops/new_user/.