Easy Access to HPC Resources through the Application GUI

  • Matthijs van Waveren King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
  • Ahmed Seif El Nawasany King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
  • Nasr Hassanein King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
  • David Moon King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
  • Niall O'Byrnes King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
  • Alain Clo King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
  • Karthikeyan Murugan King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
  • Antonio Arena King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal

Abstract

The computing environment at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is growing in size and complexity. KAUST hosts the tenth fastest supercomputer in the world (Shaheen II) and several HPC clusters. Researchers can be inhibited by the complexity, as they need to learn new languages and execute many tasks in order to access the HPC clusters and the supercomputer. In order to simplify the access, we have developed an interface between the applications and the clusters and supercomputer that automates the transfer of input data and job submission and also the retrieval of results to the researcher’s local workstation. The innovation is that the user now submits his jobs from within the application GUI on his workstation, and does not have to directly log into the clusters or supercomputer anymore. This article details the solution and its benefits to the researchers.

Author Biography

Matthijs van Waveren, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, IT Research Computing, Thuwal
I have worked 20+ years in the IT field, starting as researcher in computational physics at the University of Amsterdam, then as supercomputer consultant at the SARA computer centre, and as researcher at Schlumberger and Fujitsu. I have also been for many years members of the Fortran and OpenMP ARB standard committees and of the SPEC High-Performance Group. I am now working as research applications specialist at the recently created university KAUST in Saudi Arabia. One of my goals is to make it easy for users to access HPC resources, for instance by developing automatic job submission to HPC systems from application GUIs.

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Published
2016-09-16