The main purpose of this wiki is to enable comfortable editing of the skill definitions from the git repository and for the available certificates. One skill or certificate is exactly one page.

To navigate the skills effectively, use the JavaScript Map

We welcome improvements to the skill definitions (we lack at the moment some description below) and suggestions for skill tree changes. The skill tree has several representations, a Markdown version forms the foundation; then we have a JavaScript representation for better navigation ability. The markdown version is available in this wiki. You may use it to make minor modifications to the descriptions (just register). More complex changes and modifications of the tree itself should be done by creating a GitHub pull request to either Markdown or XML representation.

Note that the chairs for the subtree may comment or discuss the proposal.

A skill is located in a unique place in the skill tree, which is the URI. There may be multiple references to a skill in the tree (which is then like a graph).

A skill is defined by the following fields:

• ID
  This is a unique identifier from the root of the tree to the skill.
  The last character of the skill encodes the skill level (B)asic, (I)ntermediate, (E)xpert. Skills with a higher level expand upon the competences from a lower level, therefore, an expert skill includes the qualification of intermediate and basic.
• Name
  A speaking name for a skill.
• Background
  Provides brief information motivating the need for the skill and how this skill fits into the skill map; what is the bigger picture.
• Aim
  Programme or module aims serve as broad purposes or goals and are generally a statement of the intentions of the teacher or school when designing or running the course. They are not intended to be statements of what students will learn or do, but rather over-arching intentions of the course. At a basic level, aims are trying to answer two questions: What is the purpose of this programme or module? What is the programme or module trying to achieve? reference
• Learning outcomes
  Defines briefly what what practitioners know / will learn. Good literature describing the objectives is here. The objected are statements what prospect learners are able to do, they should
  • describe or define an action
  • be clearly stated
  • be measurable/quantifiable to some extent, for example, by using the action words
• Subskills
  skills in the tree that refine the generic aims and learning outcomes. Note that for the ease of navigation ability, they may stem from another (top-level) branch.

This skill is made up for demonstration purposes. Firstly, we have a high-level skill.

• ID: USE4.2-B
• Name: Executing parallel applications
• Background
  Parallel computers are operated differently than a normal PC, all users must share the system. Therefore, various operative procedures are in place. Users must understand these concepts and procedures to be able to use the available resources of a system to run a parallel application. Moreover, individual solutions can often be found in a specific system.

  • Aim: (To enable practitioners to)
  • To comprehend the concepts and procedures for running parallel applications in HPC environments
  • To use the system to run and monitor the execution of parallel applications on the HPC system
  • Outcomes: (the practitioner is able to):
  • explain the concepts and procedures for resource allocation and job execution in an HPC environment
  • run interactive jobs and batch jobs
  • comprehend and describe the expected behavior of job scripts
  • change provided job scripts and embed them into shell scripts to run a variety of parallel applications
  • analyze the output generated from a job scheduler and describe the cause of typically generated errors

Now, let's see a generic sub-skill, this extends the previous definition being a sub-skill. Hence, it is intended that the objectives and outcomes from the parent skill above are covered and refined into specifics.

• ID: USE4.2.1-B
• Name: Workload manager introduction
• Background
  There is a wide range of different workload managers in use. This skill covers generic and widely used concepts.
• Aim

  • To enable practitioners to comprehend and describe the basic architecture and concepts of resource allocation for an HPC system
• Outcomes
  • comprehend the exclusive and shared usage model in HPC
  • differentiate batch and interactive job submission
  • comprehend the generic concepts and architecture of resource manager, scheduler, job and job script
  • explain environment variables as a means to communicate
  • comprehend accounting principles
  • explain the generic steps to run and monitor a single job

Now, let's see a specific sub-skill for a specific software, this also extends the previous definition being a sub-skill but is on the same level as the basic skill above. Hence, multiple similar software solutions can build on the knowledge disseminated in USE4.2.1-B.

• ID: USE4.2.2-B
• Name: SLURM Workload manager
• Background
  SLURM is a widely used open-source workload manager providing various advanced features.
• Aim

  • To enable practitioners to comprehend and describe the basic architecture of SLURM and the suite of tools
  • To use relevant tools to run and monitor (parallel) applications
• Outcomes
  • run interactive jobs with salloc, a batch job with sbatch
  • explain the architecture of SLURM, i.e., the role of slurmd, srun and the injection of environment variables
  • explain the function of the tools: sacct, sbatch, salloc, srun, scancel, squeue, sinfo
  • explain time limits and the benefit of a backfill scheduler
  • comprehend that environment variables are set when running a job
  • comprehend and describe the expected behavior of a simple job scripts
  • comprehend how variables are prioritized when using command line and a script
  • change a provided job template and embed them into shell scripts to run a variety of parallel applications
  • analyze the output generated from submitting to the job scheduler and typically generated errors