Deploying Jupyter Notebooks at scale on XSEDE resources for Science Gateways and workshops

Jupyter Notebooks have become a mainstream tool for interactive computing in every field of science. Jupyter Notebooks are suitable as companion applications for Science Gateways, providing more flexibility and post-processing capability to the users. Moreover they are often used in training events and workshops to provide immediate access to a pre-configured interactive computing environment. The Jupyter team released the JupyterHub web application to provide a platform where multiple users can login and access a Jupyter Notebook environment. When the number of users and memory requirements are low, it is easy to setup JupyterHub on a single server. However, setup becomes more complicated when we need to serve Jupyter Notebooks at scale to tens or hundreds of users. In this paper we will present three strategies for deploying JupyterHub at scale on XSEDE resources. All options share the deployment of JupyterHub on a Virtual Machine on XSEDE Jetstream. In the first scenario, JupyterHub connects to a supercomputer and launches a single node job on behalf of each user and proxies back the Notebook from the computing node back to the user's browser. In the second scenario, implemented in the context of a XSEDE consultation for the IRIS consortium for Seismology, we deploy Docker in Swarm mode to coordinate many XSEDE Jetstream virtual machines to provide Notebooks with persistent storage and quota. In the last scenario we install the Kubernetes containers orchestration framework on Jetstream to provide a fault-tolerant JupyterHub deployment with a distributed filesystem and capability to scale to thousands of users. In the conclusion section we provide a link to step-by-step tutorials complete with all the necessary commands and configuration files to replicate these deployments.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, PEARC '18: Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing, July 22--26, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA, US

From Bare Metal to Virtual: Lessons Learned when a Supercomputing Institute Deploys its First Cloud

As primary provider for research computing services at the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) has long been responsible for serving the needs of a user-base numbering in the thousands. In recent years, MSI---like many other HPC centers---has observed a growing need for self-service, on-demand, data-intensive research, as well as the emergence of many new controlled-access datasets for research purposes. In light of this, MSI constructed a new on-premise cloud service, named Stratus, which is architected from the ground up to easily satisfy data-use agreements and fill four gaps left by traditional HPC. The resulting OpenStack cloud, constructed from HPC-specific compute nodes and backed by Ceph storage, is designed to fully comply with controls set forth by the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy. Herein, we present twelve lessons learned during the ambitious sprint to take Stratus from inception and into production in less than 18 months. Important, and often overlooked, components of this timeline included the development of new leadership roles, staff and user training, and user support documentation. Along the way, the lessons learned extended well beyond the technical challenges often associated with acquiring, configuring, and maintaining large-scale systems.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, PEARC '18: Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing, July 22--26, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA, US

Canis Major

This poster for the Natural Sciences Poster Session features the constellation Canis Major. Features of the poster include a calculation of the change in rise time to calculate the passage of a year, determining the life span of the major stars in the constellation, and identifying Messier objects within the region

Black Holes and Einstein: A Commentary of the Types of Black Holes that Produce Gravitational Waves

Perhaps the most the notorious player in the astronomical field, objects known as black holes captivate the imaginations of scientists and average folk the world over, but as much as we adore hypothesizing about what black holes are like, there is so much that we’re only just finding out about. From 1909 until 1918, famed physicist Albert Einstein predicted many characteristics of spacetime and the effect of massive objects on it, including the notion of an energy-carrying wave moving at the speed of light that causes ripples through the fabric of spacetime, otherwise known as gravitational waves. A relatively recent field of astrophysical study is the study of gravitational waves, a phenomenon first conceived of by the most famous physicist in history, Albert Einstein. In this paper, I intend to discuss binary black hole mergers that produce such gravitational waves, the mergers that have been discovered already by gravitational wave observatories, and the future of gravitational wave observation

Isomonodromic deformations of connections with singularities of parahoric formal type

In previous work, the authors have developed a geometric theory of fundamental strata to study connections on the projective line with irregular singularities of parahoric formal type. In this paper, the moduli space of connections that contain regular fundamental strata with fixed combinatorics at each singular point is constructed as a smooth Poisson reduction. The authors then explicitly compute the isomonodromy equations as an integrable system. This result generalizes work of Jimbo, Miwa, and Ueno to connections whose singularities have parahoric formal type.Comment: 32 pages. One of the main theorems (Theorem 5.1) has been significantly strengthened. It now states that the isomonodromy equations give rise to an integrable system on the moduli space of framed connections with fixed combinatorics instead of only on a principal GL_n bundle over this space. Sections 5 and 6 have been substantially rewritte

Influences sociostructurelles du groupe de pairs sur la motivation scolaire des jeunes enfants

Cette étude examine les contingences comportementales en tant que processus par lesquels les pairs influencent la motivation scolaire des enfants pendant les interactions sociales en classe. Les regroupements affiliatifs au sein de la classe d'enfants de 10 à 11 ans ont été identifiés à partir d'une procédure de nomination. Les observations longitudinales ont montré qu'au début de l'année scolaire, les élèves fortement motivés ont reçu plus d'approbation de leurs amis par rapport à leur engagement dans les activités scolaires, alors que les élèves faiblement motivés ont reçu plus de désapprobation des camarades surtout par rapport à leurs conduites perturbatrices. L'étude révèle que ces deux schemes de contingence, mis en conjonction avec l'insertion sociale des enfants dans le réseau arhliatif de leur classe, contribuent au changement dans leur motivation tout au long de l'année scolaire.This study examines behavior contingencies as a process by which peers influence the school motivation of children during classroom interactions. Peer groupings in a classroom of children aged 10 to 11 years were identified through a naming procedure. Longitudinal observations showed that at the beginning of the school year those students who are strongly motivated received more approval for their participation in school activities while those poorly motivated received peer disapproval specifically with regards to their disturbing behaviors. The study shows that these two models, in conjunction with children's social integration within the peer network of their class, contributes to modify their motivation during the school year.Este estudio examina las contingencias comportamentales en tanto que proceso por intermedio del cual los companeros influencian la motivacion escolar del nino durante las interacciones sociales en clase. Los reagrupamientos en el seno de la clase de ninos de 10 all anos han sido indentificados a partir de un procedimiento nominative Las observaciones longitudinales mostraron que al principio del ano escolar, los alumnos muy motivados reci- bieron la aprobacion de sus amigos respecto de su implicaciôn en las actividades escolares, mientras que aquellos que estaban poco motivados recibieron la desaprobacion de sus camaradas, principalement^ cuendo se trata de conductas perturbadoras. El estudio révéla que esos dos esquemas de contingencia, puestos en conjuncion con la inserciôn social de los ninos en la red de amigos de su clase, contribuyen al cambio en la motivacion a Io largo de todo el ano escolar.Dieser Studie liegt die Uberzeugung zu Grunde, dass es sich bei der Verhaltenskontingenz um einen Prozess handelt, mit dessen Hilfe bestimmte Schiller die schu- lische Motivation ihrer Klassenkameraden wâhrend der sozialen Interaktion in der Klasse beeinflussen. Mit Hilfe eines Stimmenabgabesystems wurden die Gruppenbildungen inner- halb einer Klasse von Zehn- bis Elfjâhrigen identifiziert. Langzeitbeobachtungen haben ergeben, dass die stark motivierten Schuler am Anfang des Schuljahres von ihren Kameraden Anerkennung erhielten in Beziehung auf ihren Lerneifer, wohingegen die schwach motivierten Schuler bei ihren Kameraden auf Ablehnung stiefien vor allem auf Grund ihres Storverhaltens. Aus der Untersuchung geht weiter hervor, dass die beiden Kontingenzschemata, wenn man sie zur sozialen Eingliederung in ihre Klassengruppe in Beziehung setzt, wahrend des ganzen Schuljahres zum Motivationswechsel beitragen