Hybrid Programming in HPC – MPI+X

Unlock the full power of High-Performance Computing (HPC)! This hands-on course dives deep into hybrid programming – combining MPI, OpenMP, and OpenMP offloading to boost performance on today’s most powerful multi-core, multi-socket systems with and without accelerators. Through real-world case studies, live demos, and practical labs, you’ll learn how to fine-tune memory use, speed up communication, and get the most out of modern HPC architectures.

Most HPC systems are clusters of shared memory nodes and many use accelerators, e.g., GPUs. To use such systems efficiently, both memory consumption and communication time has to be optimized. Therefore, hybrid programming may combine the distributed memory parallelization on the node interconnect (e.g., with MPI) with the shared memory parallelization inside of each node (e.g., with OpenMP or MPI-3.0 shared memory).

This course analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of several parallel programming models on clusters of SMP nodes with and without accelerators. Multi-socket-multi-core systems, with and without accelerators, in highly parallel environments are given special consideration. In addition, we will review the shared memory programming interface introduced in MPI-3.0, which can be combined with inter-node MPI communication.

Numerous case studies and micro-benchmarks demonstrate the performance-related aspects of hybrid programming. Hands-on sessions are included on all days. Tools for hybrid programming such as thread/process placement support and performance analysis are presented in a "how-to" section.

This course provides scientific training in Computational Science and, in addition, the scientific exchange of the participants among themselves.

This course is a joint training event of SIDE and EuroCC Austria, the German and Austrian National Competence Centres for High-Performance Computing. It is organized by HLRS in cooperation with the ASC Research Center, TU Wien and NHR@FAU.

Content level

Content level: Basic = 0:00h (0%) + Intermediate = 1:30h (10%) + Advanced = 12:30h (90%)

Agenda & Content

For a detailed timetable and additional information, please see Agenda & Content in the left menu.

Target audience, eligibility & prices

This course is for developers and users of parallel software who need to fully exploit modern multi-core, multi-socket HPC systems with and without accelerators.

This course is open and free of charge for all participants from academia, industry, and public administration from EU and/or EuroHPC JU member countries.

Entry level & prerequisites

Advanced – participants need to have a basic understanding of MPI, OpenMP, and HPC systems.

Basic MPI and OpenMP knowledge as presented in our ASC or HLRS courses on MPI and OpenMP is required. For the hands-on sessions participants should know how to work on the Linux command line, how to submit jobs on a cluster, and be able to program in either C/C++ or Fortran.

Course format

This course will be delivered in HYBRID format, i.e., you can choose either in-person attendance at HLRS, Stuttgart, Germany or online participation via Zoom.

However, in-person participation is recommended for a better learning experience as it will allow you to get the most of the course, to interact closely with the instructors and work together in groups of two during the hands-on labs – a very effective way that allows you to simply learn more!

Hands-on labs

The hands-on labs will be done on the HLRS training cluster, all participants will get a training user account for the duration of the course.

Lecturer

Claudia Blaas-Schenner (ASC Research Center, TU Wien)

Tobias Haas (HLRS, University of Stuttgart)

Georg Hager (NHR@FAU, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Language

English

Date, time, and location

10.–12.02.2026, 09:00 – 17:00 (see Agenda), HLRS, Stuttgart, Germany & ONLINE (Hybrid format)

In-person: Rühle Saal, HLRS, University of Stuttgart, Nobelstraße 19, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany              
Online: Zoom

In-person participation is strongly encouraged for a better learning experience.

Registration

Registration for this training event is handled by HLRS through the HLRS course page.

All further details

Please see the HLRS course page for all further details (directions, travel, accommodation).

Organizers

This course is a joint training event of SIDE and EuroCC Austria, the German and Austrian National Competence Centres for High-Performance Computing. It is organized by HLRS in cooperation with Austrian Scientific Computing ASC (aka ASC Research Center, TU Wien) and NHR@FAU.

Acknowledgements

This course is partially funded by the EuroCC 2 project.

The project has received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101101903. The JU receives support from the Digital Europe Programme and Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Türkiye.

Additional funding for the project comes from the Austrian federal ministries BMBWF and BMK.