High Performance R

Materials for High Performance R course

Lecture slides (2025):
https://a3s.fi/high-performance-r/index.html

Exercises (2025):

• day 1
• day 2
• day 2 foreach demonstration

Course description

Course topics:

• Making use of the properties of R as a programming language to write efficient R code
• Exploring performance issues of R code by benchmarking and profiling processes and memory usage
• Parallel and distributed computing with R on both local and supercomputing resources

The topics are covered using short lectures and/or demonstrations followed by hands-on exercises using RStudio and batch jobs on the supercomputer Puhti.

Target audience:

This course is meant for anyone familiar with the basics of R and wanting to learn how to make their analyses in R more efficient and how to use R in a high performance computing environment.

Learning outcomes:

After attending this course, participants will be able to:

• Explore potential R code performance issues with benchmarking and profiling
• Understand the key properties of the R language and how they relate to the computer’s resource management
• Run R scripts with the batch job system on the supercomputer Puhti
• Get started with parallel and distributed computing with R

Pre-requisites:

• Basics of R
• Useful to make the most of the course content but not required:
  • Basics of Linux
  • Some experience in using a supercomputer, for example using the RStudio in the Puhti web interface or the course CSC Computing Environment, Part 1: Basics