Condor Challenges
These are a couple of extra challenges to do if (and only if) you have extra time.
Extend our simple.c program to calculate a more interesting function, perhaps one that takes x and y as input, and calculates z. Make it so that each calculation takes at least two minutes. Ideally, you would have a hard to calculate function, but you can use a sleep if necessary.
Challenge: How many function evaluations can you calculate by the end of the summer school? How many hours of computation can you use?
What is the best way to organize your calculation? Should you simply submit many jobs? Create a DAG with no dependencies? Create a DAG with, say, 100 calculation nodes and 1 node for collating results? Would you rather use Master-Worker?
Do you have any extra computation that needs to be done? Real work, from your life outside this summer school? If so, try it out on our Condor pool. Can't think of something? How about one of the existing distributed computing programs like distributed.net, SETI@home, Einstien@Home or others that you know. We prefer that you do your own work rather than one of these projects, but they are options.
Do you have an environment (like our R example) that you would like to "bring with you"? Challenge: figure out how to do it!
Please be polite. Computers in our Condor pool will run four jobs at a time, and these computers are shared with your fellow students. If you have jobs that will use significant computational power or memory, limit your jobs to be kind to your neighbors, unless you run your jobs during off-hours.