Workshop HPC Certification for the German HPC Community

Background

The German HPC landscape is rapidly changing. With initiatives such as the NHR, the awareness of training and collaboration between the centers has risen. It is a good time to revisit the opportunities and challenges for training in Germany and discuss prospect collaborations with the HPC Certification forum.

The goal of the HPC Certification Forum is to clearly categorize, define, and examine competencies expected from proficient HPC practitioners. The HPC Certification Forum (HPCCF) has the role of the central authority to curate and maintain the certification program. The program consists of three parts: competencies defined in a modular and easily expandable skill tree, the examination process to verify that practitioners possess those skills, and finally the certification demonstrating their knowledge. Although the forum is not involved in the development of any training materials or tools, it supports the ecosystem around the competencies. The ultimate goal of the forum is to offer a free globally acknowledged certification program that would make the HPC education and training more transparent and quantifiable for training providers, and easier to navigate for practitioners.

The goal of the organized workshop is to discuss the opportunities for utilizing and collaborating between the HPC certification and German data centers. While the HPC Certification Forum has made progress over the last two years, we still require the input and the contributions from the wider HPC community to ensure that this will become a community-endorsed effort. To make sure this is an independent community-wide effort, we invite anyone interested in HPC teaching and training to participate in the discussion.

This workshop is supported by the NHR.

The workshop(s) will be recorded and YouTube videos are provided.

Organizers

  • Julian Kunkel (University of Göttingen/GWDG, NHR@Göttingen)
  • Anja Gerbes (ZIH, Technische Universität Dresden)

Scope

Key information    
When Workshop December 14th, 2021, 14-17 CET
Where Virtual Workshop Details will be published to registered attendees

Please register here for the workshop(s) to receive the connection details by email.

Agenda

Each of the talks is followed by a short Q&A. The YouTube playlist of the whole workshop is available here.

  • 14:00 Introduction to the HPC Certification Forum
    Julian Kunkel (University of Göttingen, GWDG, NHR@Göttingen)
    This talk introduces the forum and gives an overview of its role and performed activities, the status and strategies for long-term sustainability. Lastly, the plans at the GWDG to contribute for the skill tree are introduced.
    Slides – Video
  • 14:30 Potential synergies between offering NHR trainings and the HPC CF competence standard
    Anja Gerbes (ZIH, Technische Universität Dresden)
    The ZIH offers various trainings and utilizes the HPC skill tree to link the competences and also submitting missing skills to the competence standard.
    Slides – Video
  • 15:00 Certification strategy and contributions
    Christian Meesters (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, NHR@Süd-West)
    This talk presents the draft for the certification process, the examinations, the design of the question pool, and how contributions can be made to the question pool.
    Slides – Video
  • 15:30 Virtual coffee break
  • 16:00 Applying the skill tree — Early experiences with course classification and design
    Marc-Andre Hermanns (RWTH Aachen)
    Slides – Video
  • 16:30 Discussion slot
    Moderated by Julian Kunkel
    • Synergies with the NHR
    • HPC Driving License