Building a Lightweight Container-Based Experimental Platform for HPC Education

Zelong Wang, Di Wu, Zhenxiao Luo, Yunfei Du

Abstract: HPC (High Performance Computing) is of great significance due to its excellent performance in computing acceleration. However, unlike other techniques in computer science, learning HPC requires advanced computing resources such as large-scale clusters which directly increase the cost of study for students. To help students to learn HPC programming easily, we design and develop a lightweight container-based experimental platform to provide students with easily accessible and customizable HPC practice environments. In our platform, we integrate multiple practical functional modules for students, teachers, and administrators respectively. It is convenient for a user to access high-performance computing resources via a web portal, use highly customizable basic environments and have nice graphical hands-on interactive HPC learning experiences from our platform.