Python’s powerful elegance has driven its adoption at HPC centers for job orchestration, visualization, exploratory data analysis, and even simulation. But maximizing performance from Python applications can be challenging especially on supercomputing architectures. This webinar will explain those challenges with a practical emphasis on using Python at NERSC, ALCF, and OLCF. We will outline a variety of performance optimization strategies, tools for measuring and addressing performance problems, and establish best practices for Python in HPC.
Presenters
- Rollin Thomas (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center)
- William Scullin (Argonne National Laboratory)
- Matt Belhorn (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
Presenter Bios
Rollin Thomas is a Big Data Architect in the Data and Analytics Services group. Prior to joining NERSC in 2015, he was a Staff Scientist in the Computational Research Division. He has worked on numerical simulations of supernova atmospheres, observation and analysis of supernova spectroscopy data, and data management for supernova cosmology experiments. Rollin has served as a member of the Nearby Supernova Factory, is a builder on the Dark Energy Survey, and is a full member of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Dark Energy Science Collaboration. He holds a B.S. in physics from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Oklahoma.
William Scullin is an Assistant Computational Scientist Argonne Leadership Computing Facility. He is a HPC systems expert and computational generalist with a strong background in systems administration who enables science through skillful utilization of some of the largest supercomputers on Earth. He was an active developer and evangelist of Python software and tools to improve system and scientific productivity in HPC environments.
Matt Belhorn is an HPC support specialist, providing technical support and training to researchers employing the OLCF’s leadership-class public research compute resources. Matt has a research background in experimental high-energy particle physics. He was a long-time collaborator of the Belle and BelleII CP-violation experiments located at the Japanese High-Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK). His research efforts include contributions to the design and construction of BelleII’s Imaging Time-of-Propagation (iTOP) counter. Matt developed his interest in high-performance computing while analyzing the physics of spontaneous particle-antiparticle oscillations.