FCCI Tech (fka Behind Triton)

This is a series of talks about scientific computing support and HPC infrastructure administration in practice. It started as our internal kickstart to new members of our staff, but the scope is expanded and now others interested in research infrastructure is invited, though our orientation is still primarily on our own team. Typical attendee are computational research engineers, scientific computing support, or HPC cluster/SciComp admins.

In the future, this may turn into a more general “research engineering” seminar series, once we are done with internal explanations. Guest speakers are welcome. The name stands for “Finnish Computing Competence Infrastructure Tech”.

We share what our practices are, what we have learned, and informally discuss.

Practicalities

Time: The next speaker announce the time/date of the seminar the week before. The speaker sends invitation with the Zoom link. Usually Fridays at 10:00 EET.

Duration: Rough estimate: as desired; ~60 minutes time slots; should be plenty of time for questions and discussion.

Location: Zoom, ask for an invitation but it is usually the garage link.

Recordings: You can view a playlist of some videos on youtube (and a few more are available to our team internally).

It is not a right but a privilege to participate. Free.

Past and currently planned

Events are listed below in chronological order, but sort of sorted by usefulness to a broad audience in the left sidebar (including events which have been drafted but not presented).

  • Triton hardware, Ivan Degtyarenko, Wed 3.3 2021, 10:00

    • Triton hardware wise: machine room, different archs, IPMI, hardware troubleshooting

    • [Material includes sensitive data, can be provided on request]

  • Triton networking, Ivan Degtyarenko, Fri 12.3 2021, 10:15-11:15

    • Networking: IB and Ethernet setup, IB islands, troubleshooting

    • Interval video (Material includes sensitive data, provided on request)

  • Ansible for FCCI, Mikko Hakala, Mon 22.3 2021, 14-15

    • Ansible, provisioning with OpenHPC, standalone servers

    • Internal video

  • User support in Aalto Scientific Computing, Richard Darst, Mon 29.3 2021, 14-15

    • User support made easy: different support level by Science IT, docs, issue tracker, garage, etc

    • Presentation

    • Video

  • Triton software stack, Simo Tuomisto, Fri 9.4 2021, 10:15-11:15

    • Triton / FCCI software stack: Spack, building software, …

    • Video

  • Jupyter at Aalto, Richard Darst, Fri 30.4 2021, 10:15

  • Anaconda on Triton: automatic build system, Simo Tuomisto, Fri 7.5 2021, 10:15

    • Anaconda setup on Triton

    • Video

  • Diversity in computational sciences vs university services

    • This wasn’t originally given in FCCI Tech but is relevant to the people reading this page.

    • Presentation

    • Video

  • Sphinx documentation, Richard Darst, Fri 14.5 2021, 10:15

    • Open and accessible documentation using Sphinx, RST/MyST, and Readthedocs: the story behind scicomp.aalto.fi.

    • Presentation

    • Video

  • ClusterStor, Andreas Muller (HPE), Tue 18.5 2021, 12:00

    • Storage systems: ClusterStor hardware and software behind Triton’s new /scratch. Maintenance, troubleshooting.

  • RSE service status update, Jarno Rantaharju, Marijn van Vliet, and Richard Darst, Fri 28.5 2021, 10:15

  • How we did Summer Kickstart 2021, Richard darst + Reading + Video

  • Introduction to a Kubernetes deployment, Richard Darst, Fri 8.10 2021, 10:15

    • What is kubernetes and when is it useful?

    • Different types of Kubernetes objects and how you learn about them

    • Walk through how you would deploy a service into kubernetes - live demo

    • Q&A

    • Reading

    • Video.

  • jupyter.cs, Richard Darst, Fri 19.11 2021, 10:00

  • Triton authentication, Mikko Hakala, Fri 26.11 2021, 10:15

    • Internal video

  • NetApp at Aalto: department admins guide, Pekka Alaruikka / Mika Kontiala, Fri 3.12 2021, 10:15

    • NetApp setup at Aalto

    • what department admins may and may not of TeamWork

    • Practicalities: volumes, exports, qtrees, quotas, settings, permissions etc

    • (if time left) about backups on the TeamWork, troubleshooting, getting help, etc

  • High Performance Clusters at NVIDIA, Janne Blomqvist, Fri 10.12 2021, 10:15

    • NVIDIA cluster setup overview

    • Best practices of the HPC cluster maintenance

    • What we are doing wrong at FCCI as comparing to NVIDIA

  • The future of teaching: CodeRefinery teaching strategy Richard Darst, Fri 17.12 2021, 10:00

    • The role of teaching in CodeRefinery and Aalto Scientific Computing

    • Tools and strategies we use to successfully teach online: HackMD, streaming, helpers, teams, co-teaching, and more.

    • Future outlook and goals

    • Reading

    • Video

    • Demo of our online teaching strategies

  • Open onDemand experience by Esko Järnfors et all (CSC), Fri 17.12 2021, 12:00

    • NOTE: the second talk on the same Fri 17.12

  • Simple Kubernetes deployment by Richard Darst, Fri 3 Nov 2023

    • If you have a containerized service, how can you easily deploy it using Kubernetes?

    • Notes, Video

Proposed/requested future topics

  • SLURM setup, Simppa Äkäslompolo

  • Cluster monitoring, Simo/Mikko

  • Online courses and CodeRefinery, Richard Darst

  • Online work and support, Richard Darst

  • Respectfully and efficiently handling user support requests, Richard Darst

  • Science-IT data management: policies and procedures

  • Science-IT data management: storage systems and tech setup

  • History and structure of FCCI

  • Security

Send pull requests to this section to add more requests, or to the previous section to schedule a talk.