Special Topics in High Performance Computing (HPC)

CSSE 7970, Spring 2009
MWF 2:00-2:45pm, Room 1124,
Shelby Center for Engineering Technology

Dr. Weikuan Yu (wkyu@auburn.edu)
Auburn University, AL 36849-5347
Office Hour: Wed 3-4pm, Tel: 334-844-6330

Course Information

This is a graduate-level research oriented course. It focuses on processor architecture, high speed interconnects, parallel I/O and file systems, and programming models related to high performance computing (HPC). Students will learn thrust areas of research and development in HPC, and their impact on computational sciences. Prior knowledge in basic computer architecture and networking is required.

Course Material

This course is a combination of lectures and student presentations. Selected research papers on HPC will be presented and discussed in class. There are no required textbooks.

• Reading List
• Presentation Schedule

Course Objective

Students are expected to accomplish the following objectives through this course:

• Grasp a fundamental understanding of HPC system architecture
• Learn network mechanisms in high speed interconnects and user-level protocols
• Understand several basic programming models in HPC such as MPI and UPC
• Learn the criticality of parallel I/O and parallel file systems for HPC
• Learn the performance metrics and system evaluation in HPC

Topics

• General architecture of High Performance Computing (HPC)
• High speed interconnects
• User-level networking protocols
• Programming models (MPI, OpenMP, and UPC)
• Parallel file systems
• Parallel I/O middleware
• HPC performance benchmarks
• Case studies of HPC platforms
• HPC in representative computational sciences

Grading

• Class participation (20%)
• Presentation (20%)
• Course project (40%)
• Final exam (20%)

Office Hours

• Wednesday 3-4pm, or by appointment.