Organization : High Performance Computing (HPC) Industry
Competition Name : CHPC Student Cluster Competition
Applicable For : Undergraduate Students At South African Universities
Competition Deadline : Monday, 15 May
Website : https://www.chpc.ac.za/
CHPC Student Cluster Competition :
** The CHPC Student Cluster Competition gives undergraduate students at South African universities exposure to the High Performance Computing (HPC) Industry.
Related : SAMRO Overseas Scholarships Competition : www.southafricain.com/7229.html
** At the CHPC’s 2017 National Meeting teams will build small HPC clusters on the exhibition floor from hardware provided by the CHPC and our industrial partners.
** The winning team is entered into the ISC Student Cluster Competition hosted at the 2018 International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) in Germany.
For more information contact email: competition AT chpc.ac.za
Important Dates :
** Friday, 21 April – Team Applications Open
** Monday, 15 May – Team Applications Close
** Friday, 19 May – Team Selection Invitations Released
** Monday, 3 July – Team Selection Begins
** Saturday, 8 July – Team Selection Ends
** Monday, 17 July – Student Cluster Competition Teams Announced
** Friday, 1 September – Component List and Budget Released
** Sunday 1, October – Draft Submission of Cluster Designs
** Friday, 13 October – Final Submission of Cluster Designs
** Saturday, 2 December – Student Cluster Competition Begins
** Wednesday, 6 December – Student Cluster Competition Ends
Rules :
Equipment :
** You may not remove or tamper with security tape placed on the equipment allocated to your team
** Equipment assigned to your team may not be removed from the exhibition hall
** You may not interfere with another team’s equipment
** You may use your personal laptop for research and the configuration of the cluster. You may not use it as part of the benchmarked cluster
** You must submit equipment used to build or configure your cluster for inspection at a competition marshal’s request. This applies to both competition and personal equipment
Software :
** Only open source, freeware or trial software may be used on your cluster. You must adhere to the terms of use granted to you by the software licences.
** The use of pirated software is forbidden.
Cluster Configuration :
** Only members of your team and competition marshals may interact with the equipment used to build or configure your cluster. This applies to both competition provided hardware and personal equipment.
** Team mentors may not provide their team with technical assistance.
** You may use the Internet to research how to configure your cluster.
** You may use the Internet to ask questions to software maintainers and support forums.
** You may not make use on any paid for support services.
Stall :
** At least one member of your team must be at your team’s stall between 08:00 and 17:00.
** You must keep your stall clean at all times.
** You may not have food or drink within 1 metre of the equipment provided to you by the competition organisers.
** You must maintain a safe working environment in your stall. All safety concerns must be reported to a competition marshal immediately.
Benchmarking :
** Only equipment supplied to your team by the competition organisers may be used to run the benchmarks. You may remotely start benchmarks from a personal computer.
** All benchmarks must be run from your clusters head node.
** You may interface with the head node via the provided keyboard, mouse and monitor or remotely via a personal computer. A personal computer may only be used for access, it may not run any software critical to the functioning of the cluster and may not perform a portion of the work in the benchmark.
** Before you begin benchmarking you must notify a competition marshal.
** After notifying a competition marshal that you have begun benchmarking you may not touch or reboot any equipment in your cluster. If you need to touch or reboot equipment contact a competition marshal for authorisation. If an unsafe condition arises anyone may power-off the equipment; immediately afterwards they must call a competition marshal.
** Benchmark results must be ready for submission by 16:30 on the specified date
** Output from the benchmark results submitted to the judges must be must be stored and be made available to marshals and judges for inspection.
Judging :
** An event log will be kept for each team. The log will record rule violations and exemptions granted by the marshals.
** The judging panel will set the penalties for rule violations.
** The judges will view the event logs and apply penalties.
** Teams will receive a rank (one for each application) for their benchmarks. Both performance and accuracy will be considered when determining the rankings.
** The design of the cluster will be evaluated by taking into consideration the hardware and software specification as well as its functionality. The judges will assign each cluster a rank.
** The overall position of the teams will be determined by aggregating the rankings for the benchmarked codes and the design of the cluster.
** If a tie arises when aggregating the rankings the judges will break the tie and set the order of the tied teams as they see fit.
** The judging panel’s decision is final.
HPCAC Student Cluster Challenge Team :
** The four competitors in the winning team of the CHPC Student Cluster Competition will be selected to compete in the HPCAC Student Cluster Challenge.
** Two competitors from any team, other than the winning team, will be selected by the judges to compete in the HPCAC Student Cluster Challenge.
** Two competitors from any team, other than the winning team, will be selected by the judges as reserves for the HPCAC Student Cluster Challenge. The judges will set the order in which the reserves are substituted.