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Containers are self-contained pieces of software that allow you to run applications easily across all sorts of different computing hardware – from your laptop to your institutional high-performance computing system – without the need for a complicated installation process. Containers are also an effective way of achieving a reproducible analysis pipeline, allowing researchers to ensure that the same version of an application and consistent computational environment are used each time. This short introductory course will show you how to find and use Singularity containers in a typical university HPC (high performance computing) context.

The workshop does not cover the use of the Docker container platform, although you will learn how to import Docker containers into Singularity.

Recommended Participants

Anyone interested in finding out more about containers and learning how to run research software from containers using Singularity. Basic experience with Unix or Linux is required. Participants will require an account on a suitable HPC system and should know how to launch and use an interactive job on that HPC.

Syllabus

  • What are containers, and where to find them
  • How to load and run containers using Singularity on HPC
  • Accessing local datafiles from a container

Upcoming workshops