Research and Development
As well as providing production computing services NERSC also participates in research and development activities in order to ensure the high performance computing systems of the future continue to meet the needs of scientists.
Benchmarking & Workload Characterization
NERSC assess available HPC system solutions using a combination of application benchmarks and microbenchmarks. By understanding the requirements of the NERSC workload we drive changes in computing architecture that will result in better HPC system architectures for scientific computing in future generation machines. Read More »
Data Analytics
OverviewNERSC engages in research and development to ensure highly-scalable, productive data, AI and analytics tools are available and deployed at NERSC; as well as to promote the use of cutting-edge data and analytics approaches and technologies in science. Recent activity is outlined below.Python and JupyterPython continues to be popular with users- we've measured more than 2k unique users in 2020. We have also deployed new NERSC monitoring that captures all Python library imports for each… Read More »
Exascale Computing
Learn about NERSC's research and development of exascale computing systems that deliver high impact across science domains, and demonstrate a new model for interaction between laboratories and vendors to create highly effective computing platforms. Read More »
KNL Cache Mode Performance
KNL's MCDRAM cache is prone to cache thrashing, which can be detrimental to application performance and performance reproducibility. NERSC initiated and led a Center of Excellence, including participants from Cray, Intel, ACES and ALCF, to minimize cache thrashing on Cori. These efforts improved the average performance of some benchmark tests by 2x. This page summarizes the results from the COE and provides guidance to users about how to minimize this issue for their applications. … Read More »
Partnerships
Strategic Partnerships in Advanced Computing @ NERSC Scientific computing is an increasingly important ingredient in technological innovation. The same HPC capabilities that enable scientific discovery can be powerful tools in energy resource modeling, device simulation, and model-based design. Through allocation programs described below, NERSC partners with researchers in public and private sectors to develop new capabilities in modeling, simulation and data analytics. Over 5,000 scientists… Read More »
Superfacility
Mission StatementThe Superfacility concept is a framework for integrating experimental and observational instruments with computational and data facilities. Data produced by light sources, microscopes, telescopes and other devices can stream in real-time to large computing facilities where it can be analyzed, archived, curated, combined with simulation data and served to the science user community via powerful computing, storage and networking systems. Connected with high-speed programmable… Read More »
Shifter: User Defined Images
Shifter: Bringing Linux containers to HPCUsing ShifterFor more information about using Shifter, please consult the documentation here.BackgroundNERSC is working to increase flexibility and usability of its HPC systems by enabling Docker-like Linux container technology. Linux containers allow an application to be packaged with its entire software stack - including some portions of the base OS files - as well defining needed user environment variables and application "entry point.". Read More »
APEX
Alliance for Application Performance at Extreme Scale NERSC has partnered with the Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES) collaboration of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) to form the Alliance for Application Performance at Extreme Scale (APEX). The focus of the APEX collaboration is on Application Performance of High Performance Computers. and on meeting the mission needs of its partners and in pursuing Advanced Technology concepts. We… Read More »
2020 NERSC Summer Internships
NERSC hosts a number of internships every summer. Applicants must be students, actively enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs. These are paid internships, but we are unable to provide additional support for travel or housing. Desired technical qualifications are specified with each project description. To apply for one of these internships, please reach out to the listed NERSC mentors directly and send your CV/resume. Application Performance Automating Performance Analysis This… Read More »
