CSC Computing Environment – Self Learning
Online self-learning course about CSC Computing Environment
- Are you planning on using CSC services (Puhti, Mahti, Allas…) in near future?
- Have you been using these services already, but would like to make sure you are getting the most out of them?
This is what everyone should know about our HPC environment when launching jobs!
This online course consists of 10 topics focusing on using the CSC High Performance Computing environment, which has been tailored for researchers to be easy and efficient for scientific use. The CSC services (Puhti, Allas…) discussed in this course are free-of-charge for academic research, education and training purposes in Finnish higher education institutions and in state research institutes (subsidized by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland).
Prerequisites
For efficient progress on this course you should fulfill the following prerequisites:
- Basic unix skills:
- How to move in the directories, copy and edit files – basic command line usage (ls, cp, cd, nano, more, cat, echo, mkdir, rm, tar … ).
- Check out CSC Linux Cheat Sheet (one page summary of most important Linux commands and then some -handy to have near you during the course)
- CSC credentials and computing project
- In case you do not have an account to CSC’s services yet, please apply for it before the course; it is needed for the tutorials & exercises. Membership of a computing project with access to Puhti and Allas is needed (FAQ: Do I have a project?)
- A computer at least with a browser or additionally an ssh client (we recommend MobaXterm for Windows users).
To help course participants have these needed prerequisite skills, we have created a small self-learning course in e-Lena – enroll via this link!
That is the easiest way to make sure you have everything ready for the course!
Course content
Course is organized in eLena-platform. All the course material and exercises can be accessed from there.
The course materials consists of slides that are presented in lecture videos, hands-on “type along” tutorials and eLena-quizzes.
All the course material except quizzes can also be accessed in GitHub via this link.
Learning outcomes
This course is equivalent to the live/online course “CSC Computing Environment” / “Using CSC HPC Environment Efficiently”. If you have participated that one and wish to revise the material – feel free to register to this one as well!
After completing this course, you should have the necessary knowledge needed to use the CSC Computing Environment efficiently in different phases of your research projects – where to look for more specific information and how to learn more.
The topics include:
- Connecting to Puhti
- HPC/supercomputer vocabulary
- Ideal disk areas for large IO operations
- How to use modules at CSC supercomputers
- How to use a batch jobs and interactive jobs
- Efficient usage of resources
- Using Allas Object Storage
- How to install your own software
- How to run Singularity containers in CSC environment
- Different strategies to speed up your workflows (a topic is under serious updates)