High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart

Hybrid Programming in HPC – MPI+X

While this course will be provided as a HYBRID course (on-site + virtual attendance possible), we strongly recommend to attend this course on-site

Most HPC systems are clusters of shared memory nodes and many use accelerators, e.g. GPUs. To use such systems efficiently, both memory consumption and communication time must be optimized. Therefore, hybrid programming may combine the distributed memory parallelization on the node interconnect (e.g., with MPI) with the shared memory parallelization inside of each node (e.g., with OpenMP or MPI-3.0 shared memory).

This course analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of several parallel programming models on clusters of SMP nodes with and without accelerators. Multi-socket-multi-core systems, with and without accelerators, in highly parallel environments are given special consideration. In addition, we will review the shared memory programming interface introduced in MPI-3.0, which can be combined with inter-node MPI communication.

Numerous case studies and micro-benchmarks demonstrate the performance-related aspects of hybrid programming. Hands-on sessions are included on all days. Tools for hybrid programming such as thread/process placement support and performance analysis are presented in a "how-to" section.

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

This course is a joint training event of SIDE and EuroCC-Austria, the German and Austrian National Competence Centres for High-Performance Computing. It is organized by the HLRS in cooperation with the ASC Research Center, TU Wien and NHR@FAU.

 

Location

This hybrid event will take place online and at
HLRS, University of Stuttgart
Nobelstraße 19
70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Room 0.439 / Rühle Saal
Location and nearby accommodations

Start date

Jan 19, 2027
10:45

End date

Jan 21, 2027
13:00

Language

English

Entry level

Advanced

Course subject areas

Hardware Accelerators

Parallel Programming

Programming Languages for Scientific Computing

Topics

Debugging

Code Optimization

MPI

MPI+OpenMP

OpenMP

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Prerequisites and content levels

Prerequisites:
  • Participants are expected to be familiar with basic MPI and OpenMP programming since this course is not for beginners in parallel programming. Minimum requirements is that you are familiar with the topics of days one and two at https://fs.hlrs.de/projects/par/events/2022/agenda_2022-PAR.pdf. You are well prepared if you attended our HLRS courses on MPI and OpenMP for instance.
  • For the hands-on sessions you should know Unix/Linux and either C/C++ or Fortran.
  • The hands-on labs will be done on a cluster at HLRS, all participants will get a training user account for the duration of the course.

 

Content levels:
  • Advanced: 13:45 hours

Learn more about course curricula and content levels.

 

Instructors

Claudia Blaas-Schenner (ASC Research Center, TU Wien and Advanced Computing Austria),
Georg Hager (NHR@FAU, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg),
Tobias Haas (HLRS, University of Stuttgart)

Learning outcomes

This course provides scientific training in Computational Science, focusing on hybrid programming techniques to efficiently optimize memory usage and communication on multi-core, multi-socket HPC systems, with and without accelerators.

Agenda

The presentation times listed in the agenda are tentative.
----------- PRELIMINARY AGENDA -----------

1st day – Tuesday, 19 January 2027

10:45   Join in
11:00      Welcome
11:15      Introduction to Hybrid Programming in HPC – MPI+X
11:45      Programming Models
11:50         - MPI + MPI-3.0 Shared Memory
12:30   Lunch
14:00         - MPI + OpenMP lecture and hands-on - how to compile and start
15:15   Break
15:30         - MPI + OpenMP lecture and hands-on - how to do pinning
16:45     Q & A
17:00   End of first day
17:00   Social event on-site

2nd day – Wednesday, 20 January 2027

08:45   Join in
09:00         - continue: MPI + OpenMP
09:00         - Case study: Simple 2D stencil smoother
09:30            Hands-on - hybrid through OpenMP parallelization
10:45   Break
11:00         - Overlapping Communication and Computation
11:30            Hands-on - taskloops
12:15         - MPI + OpenMP Conclusions
12:30   Lunch
14:00         - MPI + Accelerators lecture and hands-on
15:15   Break
15:30         - MPI + Accelerators lecture and hands-on
16:45           Q & A
17:00   End of second day 

3rd day – Thursday, 21 January 2027

08:45   Join in
09:00      Programming Models (continued)
09:05         - MPI + Accelerators lecture and hands-on
10:30   Break
10:45         - MPI + Accelerators lecture and hands-on
11:45   Break
12:00      Conclusions, Q & A, Feedback
13:00   End of third day (course)

Handout

A link to the course material (slides and exercises) will be available at course start

HLRS concept for on-site courses

Besides the content of the training itself, an important aspect of this event is the scientific exchange among the participants. We try to facilitate such communication by

  • a social event on the evening of the first course day,
  • offering common coffee and lunch breaks and
  • working together in groups of two during the exercises. Laptops wil be provided.

Registration information

Register via the button at the top of this page.
This course will be hybrid, i.e. it will take place at HLRS on-site but it will also be possible to attend online. Participants, online as well as on-site, have to be aware and agree that they might appear in the live video stream taken by a camera in the back of the lecture room or by a webcam on laptops. We strongly recommend to attend this course on-site since on-site attendance is much more effective and efficient in our experience. Therefore we might give priority to on-site over online participants during registration.

Please be aware that the video conference session will be recorded. You declare that you are aware of and consent to the recording by registering.

Registration closes on Sunday, 10 January 2027.

Late registrations after the registration phase are still possible according to the course capacity. We cannot guarantee a cluster account for the hands-on sessions for late registrations.

Fees

This course is free of charge and includes coffee breaks (in classroom courses only).

Only participants from institutions belonging to EU and EuroHPC JU member states can apply to this course.

Contact

Tobias Haas phone 0711 685 87223, 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. SIDE 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 has been coordinating one of the AI Factories of the EuroHPC JU: HammerHAI. 

This is a joint training event of SIDE and Advanced Computing Austria).

EuroCC 3 has received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under Grant Agreement No. 101306701. The JU receives support from the European Union‘s Digital Europe Programme and Germany, Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, and Kosovo.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Neither the European Union nor the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking can be held responsible for them.

HPC in Europe is the umbrella brand uniting Europe's high-performance computing initiatives across 36+ countries. 

CASTIEL 3 has received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under Grant Agreement No. 101306918. The JU receives support from the European Union‘s Digital Europe Programme and Germany, Spain, France, Estonia.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Neither the European Union nor the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking can be held responsible for them.

Further courses and training team

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

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High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart Nobelstraße 19, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Contact & Location

A member of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing, HLRS is one of three German national centers for high-performance computing.

www.gauss-centre.eu

HLRS is a central unit of the University of Stuttgart.

www.uni-stuttgart.de/en/

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