NeSI Quick Tips webinar series a success
Since wrapping up the last session of NeSI's 'Quick Tips' webinar series earlier this month, we have gathered some highlights from this pilot initiative and are asking the research community to help us plan the next round of webinars for 2020.
Highlights
Running from August to November 2019, the ‘Quick Tips’ series had 103 total registrants and 46+ attendees from across NZ. We had registrants from all major universities, four CRIs, four CoREs, and a spattering of other private and government organizations.
Most registrants self-identified as a graduate student (32.4%), research staff (31.4%), or support staff (11.8%) while postdocs, faculty, and other professionals were present to a lesser degree. As for domains, the Biological Sciences were by far the most represented, followed closely by representatives from Earth Sciences, Engineering, Information and Computing Science, and Physical Sciences. We're pleased the sessions appealed to such a variety of attendees!
We hoped this series would provide learning opportunities to the widest range of learners possible, whether new to HPC or more advanced. That being said, there is always room for improvement. We would love to hear from you on what we can do better, including suggestions for future webinar topics. Please give us your honest feedback, critiques, and commendations by filling out this survey.
Summaries
The webinars we ran in 2019 were bite-sized training opportunities for NeSI users to learn about common challenges and NeSI core services. They were recorded and posted to the NeSI Youtube channel and, to date, have received more than 100 views. See the list below for a mini recap of each webinar as well as the link to its recording:
- HPC 101: Job scaling and running tests
Determining the amount of resources your NeSI job requires can seem tricky. Anthony Shaw showed users how the results of small-scale tests can be used to predict resource requirements of your full-size jobs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqATGcNbipo&t=2549s Moving data on and off NeSI systems
If you are a new NeSI user wanting to get your data on to the platforms asap this webinar is for you. Nooriyah Lohani explains, in plain language, how to transfer data onto and off the NeSI platforms using the secure copy command (scp). This is a beginner-friendly topic essential for getting started on NeSI systems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLfgnQPLgWk&t=346sSharing data with groups using Globus
This was our second webinar on Globus, one of the tools within NeSI’s National Data Transfer Platform. Brian Flaherty shares a few quick tips on how to share your research data with groups of colleagues or collaborators using Globus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmkWHjFDfQY&t=1807sHigh performance modelling: One researcher’s journey
NIWA scientist Cyprien Bosserrelle shared his research journey, highlighting the benefits of working with NeSI along the way. Check out the video to learn how working with NeSI’s Computational Science Team could support your work too! (Note: for most NZ researchers, we can collaborate with you for free!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nkiM59QI7w&t=809s
It was a team effort to run this series. Special thanks to everyone in the community who helped spread the word of these webinars so that as many people as possible can benefit. We look forward to hosting you at a webinar in 2020!
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