Funding, News and Announcements

Our fall training sessions are kicking off next week, and we're excited to launch our new training portal! 

Use the portal to discover what ACENET training is coming up, register and participate in sessions, and access course materials. While you can still view our full catalogue of offerings on our website, our upcoming training will only be available on the portal. Registration for all of ACENET's courses must be done on the portal.

Basics of Computers
20 September, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL
Most of us have experience using a computer, whether for school, work, or entertainment, but how many of us have actually had an expert teach us how to use it? When one of your computing devices goes wrong, do you struggle to understand why? Perhaps you do an internet search in the hope that someone else who has had the exact same problem as you found a solution that also works for you. It doesn't need to be (quite) this way. This talk doesn't teach you how to troubleshoot everything, but does give you insight to how media, programs and data are encoded and used by computers so you can make more sense of why computers behave the ways they do and solve some of your problems with greater efficiency and less frustration. We provide an approachable overview of how a computer works, by both looking at their history and breaking one down to explain individual components, before highlighting some of the tradeoffs to consider when buying a computer. We provide practical, simple, and actionable advice on digital security and show you a few "pro tips" on how to make the most of your workstation, phone, or whatever device you happen to use. Whether you have a lot or a little experience using your digital technology, if you want to learn how to use your devices more effectively, this workshop is for you!

Introduction to ACENET and High Performance Computing (HPC)
24 September, 1000-1130hrs Atlantic | 1030-1200hrs NL
What is High Performance Computing (HPC) and what can it do for me? How can ACENET help? Used by researchers across many disciplines to tackle analyses too large or complex for a desktop, or to achieve improved efficiency over a desktop, this session takes participants through the preliminary stages of learning about high performance computing (HPC) and computing clusters, and how to get started with this type of computing. It then reviews software packages available for applications, data analysis, software development and compiling code. Finally, participants will be introduced to the concept of parallel computing to achieve much faster results in analysis. This session is designed for those with no prior experience in HPC, and are looking for an introduction and overview.

Introduction to the Linux Command Line
25 September, 1000-1130hrs Atlantic | 1030-1200hrs NL
Linux is the terminal interface used to enable you to use the ACENET and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) HPC clusters from your desktop. It's the tool you need to get your data on the clusters, run your programs, and get your data back. In this session, learn how to get started with Linux, how to create and navigate directories for your data, load files, manage your storage, run programs on the computing clusters, and set file permissions. This workshop is designed for those with no prior experience in working with a terminal interface.

Introduction to Shell Scripting
26 September, 1000-1130hrs Atlantic | 1030-1200hrs NL
Shell scripting helps you save time, automate file management tasks, and better use the power of Linux. You’ll learn how to use the command line to carry out repetitive tasks, extract information from files quickly, combine commands in powerful ways, learn about job scripts, shell variables and looping commands, and capture a workflow so you can re-use it easily. Save time, reduce errors, and use Linux more effectively. This workshop is designed for either new High Performance Computing (HPC) users who are familiar with working in a Linux environment, or for experienced users seeking to get more out of shell scripting.

Job Scheduling with Slurm
27 September, 1000-1130hrs Atlantic | 1030-1200hrs NL
The national systems use a job scheduler called “Slurm”. In this session you will learn how Slurm works and how it allocates jobs, helping you to: minimize wait time by framing reasonable requests; ask for only the resources you need to improve efficiency; increase throughput; run more jobs simultaneously; and troubleshoot and address crashes. This workshop is designed for new HPC users familiar with Linux and Shell Scripting, or for experienced users transitioning to Slurm or seeking to improve efficiency with the scheduler.

Introductory Programming with Python
8, 10 October, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic | 1330-1700hrs NL 
This is a beginner level series that is hands-on, covering the fundamentals of Python.  This includes data types, conditional statements, loops and functions, as well as program design, version control, data management, and task automation. The goal is to teach the practical knowledge needed to start programming, debugging and using Python in everyday tasks. You do not need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented or previous programming experience but intermediate level experience with a computer is highly recommended.

The Unix Shell
17 October, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic | 1330-1700hrs NL
Using software-carpentry.org materials this workshop introduces you to the fundamentals of the Unix Shell. The Unix shell has been around longer than most of its users have been alive. It has survived because it’s a powerful tool that allows users to perform complex and powerful tasks, often with just a few keystrokes or lines of code. It helps users automate repetitive tasks and easily combine smaller tasks into larger, more powerful workflows. Use of the shell is fundamental to a wide range of advanced computing tasks, including high-performance computing. These lessons will introduce you to this powerful tool.

Introduction to Cloud
29 October, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL
Cloud computing provides great flexibility allowing complete control of the computing environment. In addition, the environment can be copied, backed up, created and recreated in automated ways. This workshop will start you on the path towards making use of the great flexibility and power of cloud computing. In this workshop we will cover what a cloud is and basic cloud concepts such as virtualization, networking, and security. We will create our first virtual machine in the the national Openstack cloud and perform some essential Linux administrative tasks.

Static Websites in the Cloud
31 October, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL
A common use case for cloud computing is web hosting. We will discuss differences between static and dynamic websites, with a focus on the security and maintenance benefits of static websites. We will make use of pre-created virtual machines to create a website using the Jekyll static website generator, and along the way cover markdown a human readable syntax for formatting text.

Desktops in the Cloud
5 November, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL
The Cloud provides access to hardware resources beyond those available on your laptop or desktop, though you may still want to interact with that hardware as if it were your laptop using a graphical user interface (GUI) desktop. In this workshop we will install a GUI desktop on a remote virtual machine and connect to it from our laptop, allowing us to use this remote desktop almost as if it were our local machine.

Command the Cloud
7 November, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL
In ‘Introduction to Cloud’, we used the OpenStack web interface to create our first virtual machine. With this web interface many common tasks can be performed, however, some important tasks cannot be completed using only the web interface; instead a command line interface (CLI) is needed. The CLI also allows access to some additional and very useful tasks, such as downloading virtual machine images, and provides access to information not shown in the web interface. In this workshop, we will show how to setup and use the OpenStack CLI and perform some common tasks when managing virtual machines.

From Our Partners

Calcul Québec 
Compute Ontario 
National training calendar
Research data management 

From MathWorks

Low-Code AI with MATLAB 
17 September, 1500-1630hrs Atlantic / 1530-1700hrs NL

Optimizing and Accelerating Code in MATLAB   
17 October, 1500-1630hrs Atlantic / 1530-1700hrs NL

Collaborative Coding: MATLAB Online Meets GitHub   
6 November, 1500-1630hrs Atlantic / 1530-1700hrs NL

Using MATLAB and Python in Jupyter Notebooks   
3 December, 1500-1630hrs Atlantic / 1530-1700hrs NL