CGC Seminar

The seminar is supposed to put some spotlights on the still emerging field of cluster and grid computing. (Each year, the contents are different.) Each seminar session is supposed to present and discuss a particular topic to all students in the class. Attendance to the seminar talks is considered “almost mandatory;” please come on a regular basis. The seminar is where you learn about this exciting field!

Position papers:

Each student is supposed to write a short paper on any topic in the field of clusters, grid, and cloud computing. Choice of topic is free, as long as the topic is not (dominantly) covered by the student’s own seminar presentation topic.

  • The position paper is supposed to describe the student’s qualified opinion on the subject of the selected research work. The position paper must be about a position that is a (wild?) claim on a technical topic in the field. My favorite position from 2010 was There will be no DAS-5! The postition must be argued for, and the paper will be graded on the quality of this argumentation.
  • Special for 2012: you are encouraged to attend the Trends in HPDC workshop on March 14. Topics from this workshop are well-suited and eligible for your position papers.
  • Your position needs to be approved by me before you start writing!
    Email to me your position (max. 20 words) and I will tell you if I think this makes a good position to write about.
  • The papers should be concise (about 3000 words).
  • Deadline for the papers is 02/04/2012. Submission via blackboard. The papers must be in PDF format.

Seminar topics:

The seminar topics for 2012 are now available.

Seminar sessions:

Each seminar session focuses on a particular topic. It is organized by a group of three students, using the following structure:

  • Presentation by 1st student, (20 minutes)
  • Discussion of the presentation and topic (all, 10 minutes)
  • Presentation by 2nd student, (20 minutes)
  • Discussion of the presentation and topic (all, 10 minutes)
  • short break
  • Presentation by 3rd student, (20 minutes)
  • Discussion of the presentation and topic (all, 10 minutes)
06/02/12 Introduction

  • general introduction, logistical issues, brief overview on grid computing,Reading material:
    • Ian Foster, “What is the Grid? A Three Point Checklist”, GRIDToday, July 20, 2002, PDF.
    • Ian Foster, “There’s Grid in them thar Clouds” , blog, Jan 08, 2008.
08/02/12  Introduction to the seminar
10/02/12  Introduction to the programming assignments
13/02/12  The Ibis e-Science Software Framework
15/02/12 Introduction to writing position papers
17/02/12 Multi core, accelerators, GPU’s

  • Joost Huizinga, Evaluating Multi-Core Platforms for HPC Data-Intensive Kernels, (slides, PDF)
  • Rocco Santese, Debunking the 100xGPU vs. CPU Myth, (slides, PDF)
  • Călin Iorgulescu, StarPU, (slides, PDF)
20/02/12 MapReduce
22/02/12 Programming (graph) data processing applications
24/02/12 Load balancing
27/02/12 Volunteer computing and desktop grids
29/02/12 High-speed data transfer
02/03/12 Infrastructure as a Service
05/03/12 no class
07/03/12 Storage for cloud systems
09/03/12 no class
12/03/12 Scheduling bags of tasks
14/03/12  Workshop:

Trends in High-performance Distributed Computing

all day (09:00 — 18:00)

presentation topics are eligible for seminar papers
16/03/12 High-performance Computing in Clouds
19/03/12 no class
21/03/12 Cloud support for mobile applications
23/03/12 Fault tolerance