Students Challenge 2024-2025 - EUMaster4HPC Master website

The objective of the students challenge 2024-2025 is the implementation of a benchmarking and regression testing framework for a Quantum Monte Carlo simulation package in HPC systems. The project targets a specific application, the QMeCha package, which has been open sourced recently. The application is distributed with a set of tests, but the organisation of the tests into various groups to facilitate development and deployment of the application, and the porting of tests into new types of systems (ARM based processors) remains an open problem.

A EuroHPC world-class green supercomputer

For this challenge, EUMaster4HPC student teams will have access to Deucalion, Portugal’s most powerful supercomputer. Deucalion is a petascale system capable of executing over 10 petaflops, or 10 million billion calculations per second. Supplied by Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Deucalion is a unique EuroHPC supercomputer that combines ARM A64FX processors with BullSequana technology provided by Eviden, an Atos-owned business specialising in advanced computing. As the first EuroHPC supercomputer based on ARM processors, Deucalion plays a pioneering role in the European Processor Initiative (EPI), which aims to develop energy-efficient microprocessors and accelerators within Europe.

Tasks for students

Each team will be composed of 3 or 4 students from two different universities.

Workload is 40 hours per student.

Students 1-2

1h-8h: Get acquainted with QMeCha source code and how it is compiled and deployed in HPC systems.
9h-32h: Benchmark the code and design the tests. There will be an array of tests, students should categorise the test according to the code component and the hardware they target.
33h-40h: Help students 3 in the refinement of the testing API and student 4 in the refinement of the reporting API.

Student 3

1h-16h: Select and get acquainted with a regression testing framework (e.g ReFrame).
17h-32h: Implement the testing system and provide and API for launching the tests.
33h-40h: Debugging and refactoring.

Student 4

1h-16h: Collaborate with student 3 in the selection of the testing framework and design a frameworks to present the test results (e.g. Grafana).
17h-32h: Deploy a platform to present the results of the tests.
33h-40h: Refine the API for the platform presenting the results.

Supervisor

Georgios Kafanas is a Postdoctoral researcher with HPC group of the University of Luxemourg. His main research interests include the performance modeling of numerical algorithms and simulation softare in large scale HPC system. As a member of the HPC team of the University of Luxembourg he is responsible for developing and maintaining testing frameworks for users the use the HPC plat form to develop software.

Mentors

Each team will be followed by one mentor. Academic mentors can offer advice regarding design choices and can help students with technical issues that fall outside the scope of the project.

Evaluation criteria

The students will get acquainted with cutting edge systems, and gain practical experience with software engineering practices, such as the design of APIs as a means of organising work and communication.

The students will be evaluated:

The quality of test selection, and how well each test performs its state functions.
The range of cases covered by the tests, and insights for improving the code performance.
The quality and precision of the final documentation.

There is a lot of material for one person to master at the given amount of time, so group members will have to work in parallel. The students will thus develop their individual research skills, but also cooperate in a structured manner within a team.

Timeline of the Challenge

Launch of the challenge: the challenge officially starts on the 16 September 2024
End of the challenge: early January 2025
Evaluation period: January – June 2025
Results: EUMaster4HPC Summer School 2025

Any questions?

If you have any questions regarding this challenge, please contact Georgios Kafanas.