RMACC HPC Symposium 2025

Rocky Linux is a community based Enterprise Linux distribution established in the wake of the announcement that CentOS shifting to a new model focused on being a development branch rather than a rebuild of RedHat Enterprise Linux. The Rocky Linux community includes Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that help to push Rocky Linux further like Security, Cloud, additional Architectures, and HPC
CIQ is the founding sponsor of Rocky Linux and provides support and optimizations for joint customers. CIQ also pushes the boundaries of Rocky Linux by providing variants of Rocky Linux for specific use cases like security as well applications for the next generation IT stack.
In this session, we will go over the history of Rocky Linux, describe how SIGs are driving forward new features and how to get involved. We will also go over how CIQ supports and enhances Rocky Linux today and what is coming in the future for both CIQ and Rocky Linux.

Tmux (“terminal multiplexor”) is a Linux tool with two useful functions: 1) a user may run several terminal windows within a single Tmux session, and 2) the Tmux session can be run in the background.   The latter functionality is particularly useful on remote computing systems (e.g., supercomputers) that require user access via ssh, because users may “reattach” to their Tmux session each time they login, minimizing loss of work between logins.  This presentation will provide an overview, hands-on exercises, and a discussion of useful tools and best practices to streamline use of Tmux.  To follow along with the hands-on exercises, register for a Research Computing account beforehand. 

New to CU Research Computing, but don't know where to start? This RC Primer training is designed to give you an overview of Research Computing resources, procedures and best practices. You will learn how to log in, request allocations, store and transfer data, load software, run a job, and ask for help. In order to follow along with the hands-on component of this session, you’ll want to register for a Research Computing account beforehand. 
 

As research data volumes grow and mandates for data publication become more pervasive, automated means for managing these complex workflows to ensure data integrity have a growing role in modern science. In this session we will introduce Globus Flows, a foundational service for orchestrating secure and reliable data management tasks at scale, and Globus Compute, a service which enables you to execute functions on diverse remote systems. We will describe how Globus Flows and Compute fit into the Globus ecosystem of data and compute management services, and how flows can feed into downstream data portals, science gateways, and data commons, enabling search and discovery of data by the broader community. We will demonstrate how to run various Globus provided flows and discuss initiating flows with triggers and inserting compute tasks into your flows. We will conclude with an interactive tutorial detailing how to build custom flows using Jupyter notebooks and the Globus web app.

Many modern research software systems run on Kubernetes for scale and resilience (e.g. JupyterHub, Dask, RStudio, etc.). Deploying Kubernetes in a reliable and robust way has historically been difficult. This tutorial offers a simple way to deploy Kubernetes clusters on Jetstream2 using OpenStack Magnum. By making cluster setup and management easier, this session helps teams with limited IT support to run powerful and scalable computing tools.

Participants will learn how to use OpenStack Magnum to create and manage Kubernetes clusters on the Jetstream2 research cloud. Designed for research software engineers and IT support staff with intermediate Linux skills and a basic understanding of containers and container orchestration, this session provides a repeatable process to build a scalable, container-based research system for their institutions.

Jetstream2 is a flexible, user-friendly cloud computing environment built on OpenStack. It is available to US-based researchers and educators at no cost through support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) program. 

OpenStack is a free cloud computing platform that provides Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It helps organizations set up and manage public and private clouds. OpenStack includes tools for computing, networking, storage, and identity management, making it easy to build flexible and scalable cloud systems on different hardware. 

Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Kubernetes helps developers run complex applications reliably and efficiently.

Magnum is an OpenStack service that helps users set up and manage Kubernetes. Magnum offers native integration with OpenStack services, simplified cluster lifecycle management, and enhanced security and resource allocation for containers.
Learning Objectives

• Understand how OpenStack Magnum automates Kubernetes cluster setup.
  
• Understand the advantages of Magnum compared to alternatives.
  
• Follow a step-by-step process to create and configure a Kubernetes cluster using Magnum.
  
• Deploy test containerized applications and adjust cluster scaling.
  

Discover how Intel’s seamlessly integrated hardware and software stack enables cutting-edge performance for High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.

Please join Mark III and NVIDIA at RMACC for an overview, walk-through, and live demo of building an AI agent app quickly and easily using NVIDIA NIMs and Blueprints. The first segment of this session will focus on a build of a simple AI agent bot built with a Llama 3 NIM. The second segment will focus on a live build and demo of a more advanced AI agent build with an NVIDIA Blueprint (powered by multiple NIMs). Lastly, the session will show how to quickly and easily finetune a model before being served up for API consumption by apps via NIMs. This session will be of interest to participants of all levels and skillsets looking to deploy AI services into their existing and new cloud-native and modern apps and research as quickly and effectively as possible.

Are you still debugging your code with print statements and commenting out chunks of code? Would you like a more efficient way to observe and test your programs? Then you should consider incorporating Visual Studio Code’s (VS Code) built-in debugger!  
In this workshop we will cover how to use the VS Code debugger for testing a software program at run time. You will learn how to pause a running program at key locations in your code (breakpoints) and observe and/or update your project’s variables. To follow along with the hands-on component of this workshop, you will need to bring a personal laptop computer. You will also need to either have VS Code installed on your laptop computer or have a Research Computing account so that you can use VS Code through OnDemand. You can register for a Research Computing account beforehand (this will take about 10 minutes). 

Warewulf is an open-source cluster provisioning and management system primarily targeting HPC deployments. Its latest feature release, v4.6, includes a ton of new features, including an automated upgrade process, a completely new kernel management system, a new REST API, better management of site-local overlays, more dynamic and expressive overlay templates, a brand new abstract resources system, and significant performance improvements for large clusters.

In this session we will go over these changes and more in detail and showcase a new web interface from CIQ built specifically for Warewulf utilizing its new REST API. We'll also take audience questions, with a look into the future of the v4.6 release series.

Modern scientific computing demands flexible and scalable solutions that bring computing power closer to data while maintaining security and ease of use. We propose to present our solution which leverages Kubernetes to provide a platform to our employees, university members, and partner organizations that meets those demands and complements our existing HPC system. This presentation will cover how we utilize Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), coupled with GitOps and DevOps practices, to provide a robust and secure platform for hosting container-based workloads. These workloads include interactive web visualizations, JupyterHub instances, science gateways, data assimilation tools, data analysis tools, and those that require access to GPUs, including, but not limited to, AI/ML. The presentation will also cover how Cilium network and Kyverno access policies are implemented to secure the platform. It will also discuss how GitHub Actions are utilized to test and build codebases into containers that can run on the platform. Attendees will learn why we chose Kubernetes as our platform as well as practical strategies to implement similar solutions and common pitfalls to avoid.

Tired of wrestling with Slurm? This fast-paced, hands-on workshop will equip researchers with the essential tools and strategies to handle common challenges such as job failures, long queue times, and resource allocation issues.  Whether you're a beginner or have some experience with SLURM, this workshop will enable you to design, build, and troubleshoot efficient HPC research workflows. If you would like to practice some of the hands-on exercises at the end of the session, register for a Research Computing account beforehand (this will take about 10 minutes).