(*) Due to some technical problems in BASIS, some information (e.g. rooms, credit points, etc.) might not be correct in BASIS or the Module Handbook. The present website gives the latest correct information about this course.

(!) The location of the exercises is subject to change. Please, come at 15:40 to HS-7. The groups will go to the different rooms from there.

We will learn the major aspects of High Performance Computing, describe the different components in the architecture of modern supercomputers, and give an introduction on how these are programmed. The application through practical exercises will strengthen the content.

• Computer architectures, system components (CPU, memory, network) and their interrelation.
• Software environment
• Access to HPC compute resources at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre
• Practical use of parallel programming paradigms (MPI, OpenMP, CUDA)
• Performance of applications and scaling behaviour, understanding and strategies for improvement
• Current challenges in HPC

• Technical: Understanding principles of computer architecture of modern HPC systems at component (processor, accelerators) and system level (system architecture, network, memory hierarchy) and their implication for application programming. Ability to program parallel computers, employing multi-core and multi-node features. programming CPU and GPUs. understanding the quality of performance and scaling behaviour, and applying the measures needed to improve them.
• Soft skills: Ability to select a specific HPC topic and present it in a clear and comprehensive manner suitable for a lightning talk (10min)
• Prerequisites:
  • Knowledge of a modern programming language (ideally C/C++).
  • Interest in High Performance Computing
  • Recommended: Bachelor Lecture “Computerarchitektur”
• Exam Admission (Studienleistungen):
  • At least 50% of the exercises must be solved individually to attend the exam.
  • The students shall present the solution of at least one exercise during the tutories.

The content will be presented in the form of slides, which will be uploaded to eCampus after each lecture.

Students will be divided onto two groups for the exercise tutories. Therein the solutions of the exercises from previous week will be discussed and questions addressed.

Due to the large number of students registered, the examination will be in the form of a written exam at the end of the semester. Content of the examination is based on the concepts presented during the lecture, and may contain also questions handled during the exercises. The exam will be done with pen and paper, without practical programming on a computer. Students have to fulfill the prerequisites to attend the exam (see “Exam Admission” above).

• John L. Hennessy, David A. Patterson. Computer Architecture - A Quantitative Approach. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2012
• David A. Patterson, John L. Hennessy. Computer Organization and Design - The Hardware-Software Interface. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2013
• Message Passing Interface Forum. MPI: A Message-Passing Interface Standard, Version 3.1
• OpenMP Application Programming Interface, Version 4.5, November 2015