computer science

OnlineHPC

OnlineHPC is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand OnlineHPC rather than just read about it. In short: The OnlineHPC was a free public web service that supplied tools to deal with high performance computers and online workflow editor. OnlineHPC allowed users to design and execute workflows using the online workflow designer and to work with high performance computers – clusters and clouds.

Key takeaways

OnlineHPC belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect OnlineHPC to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of OnlineHPC from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The OnlineHPC was a free public web service that supplied tools to deal with high performance computers and online workflow editor. OnlineHPC allowed users to design and execute workflows using the online workflow designer and to work with high performance computers – clusters and clouds. Access to high performance resources was available as directly from the service user interface, as from workflow components. The workflow engine of the OnlineHPC service was Taverna as traditionally used for scientific workflow execution in such domains, as bioinformatics, cheminformatics, medicine, astronomy, social science, music, and digital preservation.

History OnlineHPC was started at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems in 2012 as a project for the institute’s researchers whose work need access to computer clusters and who are not professional programmers. The project motivation is that there is a gap between researcher skills and competence level needed to run high performance computing. There are at least three barriers on the way to HPC:

Researcher needs to find HPC provider and go through procedures to get access; Researcher needs to install and configure numerous low-level software applications and deal with digital certificates to proceed; Researcher needs to get familiar with such technologies and tools as MPI, batch task managers or even web services. The last requirement stops majority of even the stoutest researchers that passed first two levels. The service aims to reduce the barriers by providing a complete pre-configured set of tools required for work with computer clusters: in-browser terminal emulator, files system browser, credentials manager and massive task tool. After a while, it became obvious that engineering and scientific tasks require a more elaborate tool suit that enables researchers to execute the flow of tasks – workflows. Unless there is a number of scientific workflow implementations, they are almost all desktop applications and thus the aim was creating an online environment with a focus on simplicity and enhanced user experience. The project was in use in bioinformatics, human health, telecommunications and other domains. As of 2016-05, http://onlinehpc.com/ was unavailable.

Capabilities

OnlineHPC had a workflow designer available online using major browsers (Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer) on desktops and tablets. Workflows in OnlineHPC included components for:

Running massive computations on computer clusters SOAP/WSDL and REST Web services, special component for the BioMart web service. R statistical service Beanshell script (Java-like script language) External tools on remote machines (via ssh) XPath xml data extraction Importing data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets The service also had basic tools to prepare and run massive computational tasks on clusters - in-browser terminal emulator, file system browser and cluster status viewer. Users could choose to operate existing hardware cluster or to start a configure a new cluster instance in the cloud.

See also High performance computing e-Science Workflow Web services Bioinformatics workflow management systems

External links OnlineHPC home page (Archive of http://onlinehpc.com as of 2015-11-02) Institute for Information Transmission Problems homepage

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with OnlineHPC

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what OnlineHPC claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to OnlineHPC before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about OnlineHPC ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of OnlineHPC

In research: OnlineHPC appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses OnlineHPC in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: OnlineHPC is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computing platforms, Cross-platform software, Proprietary software programmed in Java, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for OnlineHPC outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study OnlineHPC in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what OnlineHPC means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain OnlineHPC out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is OnlineHPC in simple terms?

Why does OnlineHPC matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study OnlineHPC?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on OnlineHPC.