SINGULARITY AT SC18: HPC-INSPIRED CONTAINERS FOR COMPUTE-DRIVEN WORKLOADS

HPC inspires. That’s the tagline for SC18. HPC inspired, it turns out, aptly applies to Singularity – the solution for containerization inspired by requirements established by data scientists within HPC. The numbers on this are exceedingly clear, as Singularity is depended upon by more than 25,000 top academic, government, and enterprise users, who trust it to run over a million jobs each day on more than 3 million sockets. From well-established users and open-source contributors, to those who are hearing about Singularity for the first time, SC18 provides the perfect venue to showcase this HPC-unique software.

Runtime-environment mobility is a key benefit that Singularity delivers. Mobility that is, of course, cognisant of the demanding set of requirements that characterize HPC applications and workflows today – from rendering digital content to genomic workflows, plus CFD via OpenFOAM and much more! To underscore the importance of mobility, the second annual Singularity Treasure Hunt will be ‘executed physically’ at SC18. Providing an informal means for learning about Singularity from as many as 20 partner organizations, participants collect stamps on their treasure maps, plus booty in the form of awesome Singularity swag, as they strategically navigate the exhibits floor at SC18.

Once they have accumulated at least 10 different stamps, treasure-hunt participants are eligible to play games and enjoy refreshments at the Singularity Social. At this Thursday-afternoon event, accomplished hunters are pitted against their peers in a raffle for 1 of 3 grand prizes – a laptop, a Kano computer kit, or a Bose speaker!

Sponsored by Sylabs Inc., the Singularity Treasure Hunt and the Singularity Social promise again to provide an enjoyable and rewarding opportunity to talk Singularity. From demos of our new cloud portal for all-things Singularity, to drill-downs on the capabilities recently unleashed in the 3.0 release, to enterprise-grade SingularityPRO, there are numerous reasons to drop by the Sylabs booth at SC18 – that’s booth number 3763 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Dallas.

As the perfect complement to these talk Singularity opportunities, through a variety of formats, there will be ample opportunity to learn more about Singularity at SC18. From our current tabulation below, it’s evident that there’s plenty to choose from for the mildly curious to those ready for technically deeper dives. We’ll continue to provide updates as needed – in fact, please do feel free to let us know if there’s something we’ve missed.

Saturday, November 10

• 15:30 – Container workflows with Singularity, Gregory Kurtzer, Sylabs
  HP-CAST, Omni Hotel (30-minute presentation)

Tuesday, November 13

• 10:00 – Singularity Workshop #1, Eduardo Arango, Sylabs
  Stanford, Exhibits Booth #2206 (90 minutes)
• 11:30 – SDSC Q & A Session, Gregory Kurtzer & Dave Godlove, Sylabs
  SDSC, Exhibits Booth #3013 (30 minutes)
• 12:15 – Meeting HPC Container Challenges as a Community
  Technical Program BoF C147/148/154 (1 hour)
• 14:00 – Intel: Getting Started with Containers on HPC through Singularity, Carl Madison & Eduardo Arango, Sylabs
  Intel, Exhibits Booth #3223 (90-minute tutorial)
• 17:15 – Containers in HPC
  Technical Program BoF C140/C142 (1 hour)

Wednesday, November 14

• 11:30 – Singularity Containers on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: The Perfect Fit for Enterprise Performance Computing, Ian Lumb, Sylabs
  SUSE, Exhibits Booth #3251 (30-minute presentation)
• 13:30 – Singularity: Simple, Secure Containers, Dave Godlove, Sylabs
  Penguin, Exhibits Booth #1608 (30-minute presentation)
• 14:00 – Containers@TACC: Portable, Reproducible Scientific Applications
  TACC, Exhibits Booth #3703 (30-minute presentation)
• 15:30 – The Difference Between HPC on Premises and in the Cloud
  Technical Program Panel C155/156 (90 minutes, featuring Gregory Kurtzer, Sylabs)
• 10:00 – Singularity Workshop #2, Eduardo Arango, Sylabs
  Stanford, Exhibits Booth #2206 (90 minutes)

Thursday, November 15

• 12:30 – Singularity Containers on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: The Perfect Fit for Enterprise Performance Computing, Ian Lumb, Sylabs
  SUSE, Exhibits Booth #3251 (30-minute presentation)

SC18 promises to be a memorable event in consolidating the adoption of Singularity by the HPC, Data Science, Deep Learning, and other communities. Over at Sylabs, we’re also finding that enterprise customers with compute-driven workloads are being inspired by use of Singularity in HPC, and increasingly adopting Singularity as the most appropriate means for containerizing what we’re calling Enterprise Performance Computing (EPC). Whether your needs originate in the public or private sector however, there’s no need to wait until SC18 to get started with Singularity. In fact, by being informed before the event, you’ll be better placed to extract the most from those opportunities to both talk and learn about Singularity at SC18. The Sylabs team looks forward to seeing you in Dallas next week!