HLRS High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart: Supercomputing Academy: Parallel Programming with MPI

Prerequisites and content levels

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge in C or Fortran
Basic knowledge in Linux
Basic knowledge in Hardware Understanding

Content levels

Beginners: 12 hours
Intermediate: 16 hours
Advanced: 12 hours

Learn more about course curricula and content levels.

Target audience

This course is intended for, but is not limited to, the following groups:

Software developers
Software architects
Computer scientists
IT enthusiasts
Simulation engineers

Learning outcomes

Please refer to the course overview.

This course provides scientific training in Computational Science, and in addition, the scientific exchange of the participants among themselves.

Instructor

Dr. Rolf Rabenseifner (HLRS) rolf.rabenseifner(at)hlrs.de

Agenda

Week 1: The Beginners' MPI
Introduce the fundamentals of MPI, including the process model, basic communication techniques, and non blocking communication.
Week 2: Beginner & Intermediate MPI
Dive deeper into intermediate MPI concepts, including collective communication, error handling, derived datatypes, and virtual topologies.
Week 3: Advanced MPI - Part 1
Explore advanced MPI topics, including one-sided communication, shared memory communication, and synchronization rules.
Week 4: Advanced MPI - Part 2
Continue with advanced MPI topics, focusing on collective communications, and virtual topologies.
It wraps up with the parallelization of a simulation of the 2-dimensional heat equation.
Week 5: Advanced MPI - Additional optional content
Parallel file I/O, advanced topics on communicators and derived datatypes, and a short tour through other MPI topics. It wraps up with a lecture on best practices.

Dates for the Seminars and Exam (Preliminary schedule)

Seminars are scheduled on Mondays, 17:30-19:00: Nov. 3 (kick-off), and Nov. 10, 17, 24, and Dec. 1 (discuss the content of weeks 1-4). It is highly recommended to participate in these seminars, but if you have a conflict, you may view the recording.
Exam is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 12. You may start the approximately 2-hour exam anytime between 06:00 and 23:00. The official course dates reflect the course weeks only, not your exam preparation or the exam itself.
Although the schedule is preliminary, we strongly recommend that you reserve these dates when you register for this course.

Registration information

Register via the button at the top of this page.
We encourage you to register to the waiting list if the course is full. Places might become available.

Registration closes on October 26, 2025.

Late applications may still be accepted depending on course capacity. For late applications, we cannot guarantee that an ILIAS account will be available before the course begins.

Fees

0 Euro: Employees of the HLRS, or the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), or the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ)
40 Euro: Students without master’s degree or equivalent
90 Euro: PhD students or employees at a German university or public research institute
180 Euro: PhD students or employees at a university or public research institute in an EU, EU-associated or PRACE country other than Germany
360 Euro: PhD students or employees at a university or public research institute outside of EU, EU-associated or PRACE countries
960 Euro: Other participants, e.g., from industry, other public service providers, or government

Link to the EU and EU-associated (Horizon Europe), and PRACE countries.

HLRS concept for flexible learning

Flexible learning

This course offers flexible learning, allowing you to learn at your own pace and access online course materials and cluster resources. Web-seminars are held weekly to discuss the learning modules and to answer your questions. We also provide forum channels that enable you to communicate with the lecturer and peers, as well as to share your experiences.

Learning duration

The course is divided into multiple learning units of 10 hours each. Participants can learn the individual learning content on their own schedule. In addition, this course has fixed dates for virtual seminars and the exam.

Course certificate & confirmation of participation

The High-Performance Computing Center (HLRS) issues participants a confirmation of participation if they have joined all seminars and hand in at least 50% of the assignments, as well as a course certificate if they have passed the exam at the end of the course.

Technical requirement

Stable Internet connection so you can access and download the learning materials.
Access to video conferencing tool with camera and microphone for participation in regular seminars.

Contact

Junghwa Lee, phone 0711 685 87228, training(at)hlrs.de

HLRS training collaborations in HPC and AI

HLRS is part of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS), together with JSC in Jülich and LRZ in Garching near Munich. EuroCC@GCS is the German National Competence Centre (NCC) for High-Performance Computing. HLRS is also a member of the Baden-Württemberg initiative bwHPC. Since 2025, HLRS coordinates HammerHAI.

This course is provided within the framework of the bwHPC training program.

Further courses and training team

See the training overview and the Supercomputing Academy pages.
See also information about the HLRS training department and staff.

Supercomputing Academy: Parallel Programming with MPI

Location