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Trainings & Events

AWS Lunch & Learn Series

Research IT is partnering with AWS to host this series of training workshops. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn directly from an AWS Solutions Architects about leveraging AWS for research computing. Whether you’re a researcher, faculty member, or graduate student, this session will help you optimize your research workflows using AWS services.

Topic: Building a Secure and Cost-Efficient Web Server on AWS 
April 23, 2026, 11am - 1pm
SDSC 408

Research teams often need reliable backup solutions for their web applications to ensure continuous access to critical data and services. AWS provides an easy and cost-efficient way to set up a standby web server that can automatically take over during planned maintenance or unexpected disruptions. 

In this session, you will learn how to: 

  • Build a Standby Web Server on AWS: Set up a backup web application using Amazon EC2, Lightsail, or containerized services as your failover environment 
  • Automate Deployment and Failover: Use AWS services like CloudFormation or infrastructure-as-code tools to automate deployment and enable quick failover when needed 
  • Secure Your Standby Site: Implement AWS WAF and CloudFront to protect against web exploits, bot traffic, and scraping with predictable fixed-rate pricing 
  • Optimize Costs: Leverage AWS's pay-as-you-go model with low-cost storage during normal operations, only spinning up full compute resources during failover or testing 
  • Test and Monitor: Set up automated health checks with Route 53 and CloudWatch to detect issues and practice failover procedures 

This session is ideal for researchers, system administrators, and IT professionals who: 

  • Want a reliable, cost-efficient standby solution for web applications 
  • Need to ensure continuous access to research platforms during maintenance or disruptions
  • Are looking for automated deployment solutions that minimize manual intervention
  • Want to learn AWS best practices for building resilient web infrastructure 

Register Now! 

This is a hands-on training session
Lunch will be provided by AWS

NEW!! AWS / Research IT Office Hours

AWS now offers monthly office hours via Zoom for UCSD researchers. The sessions occur every second Tuesday from 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM. During these sessions, an AWS Solutions Architect is available to answer any questions about AWS services, both technical and business-oriented. 

These are casual, drop-in sessions where researchers can freely join without prior reservation to get their questions answered.

During these sessions, you'll be able to:

  • Receive expert guidance on your current or planned AWS implementations
  • Get detailed clarification on AWS services, features, and best practices
  • Share any challenges you're experiencing and receive targeted recommendations

We look forward to connecting with you and to helping you with your AWS needs.

Join the Zoom session

SDSC Training Events

 See SDSC Events (https://www.sdsc.edu/events/index.html) for a full list of upcoming events.

7NRP: Seventh National Research Platform Workshop

May 5-8, 2026
Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego Campus

The Workshop will cover both the current state of NRP as well as its future direction. Several tutorials will be offered on Tuesday, May 5th that will help attendees learn how to access NRP's distributed campus-owned compute cloud and allied resources.

Learn more and register here!

Building a Validated Digital Twin for Fusion

Dr. Raffi Nazikian, Director of Fusion Data Science at General Atomics

Tuesday, April 7, 2026
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (PDT) (Virtual)

This talk is offered as part of the Advanced HPC Webinar Series. The talk will describe an AI-enabled digital twin of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility that transforms fusion energy research by reducing plasma simulation times from weeks to seconds.

Learn more and register here!

Fine Tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) with Domain Specific Datasets

Tuesday, April 14, 2026
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (PDT) (Virtual)

This talk is offered as part of the Advanced HPC Webinar Series. Large language models (LLMs) are trained on massive, publicly available text datasets comprising trillions of tokens, enabling them to excel at general language tasks like next-token prediction.

Learn more and register here!

COMPLECS: 10-Event Training Series - FREE!

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is offering a 10-event series of free webinar training opportunities, Comprehensive Learning for End-users to Effectively Utilize Cyberinfrastructure (COMPLECS). Find dates and details and register here!

CIML Summer Institute

The CyberInfrastructure-Enabled Machine Learning (CIML) Summer Institute is a three-day institute that teaches artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning (AI/ML/DL) and LLM concepts to researchers, developers and educators. It will introduce techniques and methods needed to migrate their AI applications from smaller, locally run resources, such as laptops and workstations, to large-scale HPC systems, such as the SDSC’s Expanse supercomputer. Participants will learn through interactive classes and hands-on tutorials using Expanse with provided training accounts.

HPC and Data Science Summer Institute

The HPC and Data Science Summer Institute is a comprehensive week-long workshop that covers introductory-to-intermediate topics in HPC, data science, and artificial intelligence (AI). It aims to give attendees a thorough overview of these topics to accelerate their learning process through highly interactive classes and hands-on tutorials on the Expanse supercomputer.

Carpentries Workshops

  • Topics may include: The Unix Shell, Git Version Control, Introduction to R programming, Python programming, Tidy Data, and SQL

These free Carpentries workshops are designed for researchers and enables non-experts to develop computing and data management skills for research analysis. Please visit the Carpentries page for full event details and workshop registration.

Learn at the Library

View the selection of upcoming workshops offered by the Library to all UC San Diego faculty, staff, and students!