This year Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) staff participated in five large research computing-focused conferences where academic researchers and industry came together to share how they are advancing the high performance computing (HPC) field.
“OSC strategically engages with the national community to bring the best back to Ohio and its universities,” said David Hudak, OSC executive director.
ISC 2023
The ISC High Performance 2023 conference took place May 21-25 in Hamburg, Germany. It connects public and industry users and technology developers to foster the development of a community that includes practitioners of machine learning, data analytics and quantum computing.
Chase Eyster, business development manager, and Brian Guilfoos, HPC client services manager, hosted OSC’s booth for Open OnDemand, the Center’s open-source HPC portal, as well as presented the User Group Meeting “Birds of a Feather” session about the platform.
Additionally, the hands-on “HPC Toolset Tutorial” was given by the product development teams of OSC and University of Buffalo, which develops XDMoD and Coldfront, open-source HPC tools that work seamlessly with Open OnDemand.
“The HPC Toolset Tutorial was beneficial to both attendees as well as OSC staff,” Guilfoos said. “We provided attendees with new information about how the spotlighted three products can be used together while also learning more about what we need to do to help clients use the products to their full potential.”
Gateways 2023
This year the annual Gateways conference took place Oct. 30–Nov. 1 in Pittsburgh, Pa. The event was hosted by SGX3 and SGCI, both funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This conference allows gateway developers to learn and connect with colleagues with a range of diverse experiences to help bridge science and gateways.
Alan Chalker, OSC director of strategic programs and co-principal investigator on a new NSF-funded project that will further develop Open OnDemand, provided attendees with basic tools to allow them to develop new applications for the platform during a pre-conference virtual tutorial. Julie Ma from the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), also a co-principal investigator on the NSF grant, presented the Open OnDemand keynote.
The OSC team, which also included Eyster, additionally hosted an exhibitor booth at the event.
“The tutorial sessions, presentations and panels at the annual Gateways conference are a great way to learn about our colleagues’ latest initiatives while sharing our own experiences with advancing HPC,” Chalker said.
PEARC23
The Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC) 2023 conference series, held July 23-27 in Portland, Oregon, offers a forum for professionals in academia, government and industry to discuss critical topics in the research computing field.
OSC has been prominently involved in organizing the event, leading workshops and tutorials, participating in panel discussions and presenting papers. In addition, OSC showcases Open OnDemand at its exhibition booth and holds Open OnDemand advisory board and user group meetings at PEARC.
Chalker was chair of the PEARC steering committee this year and served as general co-chair of the 2022 conference. OSC has prioritized its engagement with PEARC, Chalker said, as the conference serves as an important venue for OSC to track national trends in research computing while sharing its own best practices with other cyberinfrastructure professionals.
Karen Tomko, OSC director of research software applications, served on a PEARC23 panel discussion about strategies for enhancing HPC training and education. Samuel Khuvis, OSC scientific applications engineer, presented the paper “Optimizing Amber for Device-to-Device GPU Communication Accelerating AI/ML Workflows with Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs).”
CASC 2023
The Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) is an educational nonprofit with more than 100 member institutions, including OSC. It advocates for the use of the most advanced computing technology to accelerate scientific discovery for national competitiveness, global security and economic success.
In 2023, CASC conferences took place March 28–30 and Oct. 3–5. Two members of the OSC staff traveled to both meetings: Hudak and Summer Wang, senior client engineer, attended panel discussions, presentations and breakout sessions.
Hudak served on the program committee for the spring and fall meetings and also moderated panel discussions for the University of Florida’s HITRUST Journey presentation as well as the Regulatory Compliance Panel.
“Attending CASC 2023 Membership Meetings offered me a platform to acquire new insights into the research computing and data services ecosystem, learn and share experiences with highly skilled and experienced peers, and build valuable professional relationships,” Wang said. “The knowledge I gained helps OSC provide better HPC services to both our academic and industrial clients.”
SC23
The SC23 conference took place Nov. 12–17 in Denver, Colo. Multiple OSC staff members attended, hosted the OSC/Open OnDemand exhibitor booth, made presentations and participated in panel discussions.
Open OnDemand provided interactive demos and partner presentations, including from OmniBond, Idaho National Laboratory and CSC Finland.
Chalker was interviewed by theCUBE, which provided a live broadcast from the conference, about the success of Open OnDemand, which marked its 10th anniversary during a celebration in the OSC booth.
“As of today, we have nearly 700 research-computing sites in 62 countries all over the world that are using Open OnDemand as their primary interface,” Chalker said.
During another special event this year, “OH-SC,” the Center gave Ohio attendees the opportunity to connect with each other and celebrate the state of Ohio’s contributions to supercomputing.
In addition to these activities, various OSC staff members organized or delivered talks and served on panel discussions, including Evan Jaffe, scientific applications engineer, and John Strawn, communications manager, as well as Chalker, Tomko, Khuvis and Ma.
“The annual SC conference is always a critical opportunity for OSC to talk to its national peers, participate in conversations about issues in the HPC field, and make new connections,” Chalker said. “In addition, SC23 gave the community an opportunity to continue to demonstrate to us the amazing things they are doing as a result of adopting Open OnDemand.”
About OSC: The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) addresses the rising computational demands of academic and industrial research communities by providing a robust shared infrastructure and proven expertise in advanced modeling, simulation and analysis. OSC empowers scientists with the services essential to making extraordinary discoveries and innovations, partners with businesses and industry to leverage computational science as a competitive force in the global knowledge economy and leads efforts to equip the workforce with the key technology skills required for 21st century jobs.
