Developing a Hands-On Course Around Building and Testing High Performance Computing Clusters

Abstract

We describe a successful approach to designing and implementing a High Performance Computing (HPC) class focused on creating competency in building, configuring, programming, troubleshooting, and benchmarking HPC clusters. By coordinating with campus services, we were able to avoid any additional costs to the students or the university. Students built three twelve-unit independently-operating clusters. Working groups were formed for each cluster and they installed the operating system, created users, connected to the campus network and wrote a variety of scripts and parallel programs while documenting the process. We describe how we solved unexpected problems encountered along the way. We illustrate through pre- and post-course surveys that students gained substantial knowledge in fundamental aspects of HPC through the hands-on approach of creating their own clusters.