Free parallel programming webinar (Python and R) by Domino Data Labs

By Vasudev Ram

I had blogged a few times earlier about Domino Data Lab, which is the maker of Domino, a Python PaaS (Platform as a Service) for data science (though it can also be used for general programming in the cloud). I had done a trial of it and found it to be quite good and easy to use. In fact Domino's ease of use for cloud programming was one of the points I specifically noticed and commented on, after trying it out.

Here is the last of those posts:

Domino Python PaaS now has a free plan

That post links to my earlier posts about Domino.



Today I got to know that they are hosting a free webinar on parallel programming with Python and R, using Domino. Here are the details:

[

Free webinar on parallel programming in R and Python

We'll show you how to utilize multi-core, high-memory machines to dramatically accelerate your computations in R and Python, without any complex or time-consuming setup.

You'll learn:

How to determine whether your tasks can be parallelized on multi-core, high-memory machines

General purpose techniques in R and Python for parallel programming

Specific applications of parallel programming in a machine learning context, including how to speed up cross-validation, grid search, and random forest calculations

Finally, how to use Domino for easy access to powerful multi-core machines where you can utilize these techniques.

About the instructor

The webinar will be led by Nick Elprin, one of Domino’s co-founders. Before starting Domino, Nick was a senior technologist and technology manager at a large hedge fund, where he managed a team that designed, developed, and delivered the firm’s next generation research platform. He has a BA and MS in computer science from Harvard.

]

You can sign up for the webinar here:

Domino Data Lab: free webinar on parallel programming in Python and R

- Vasudev Ram - Python training and consulting - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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Domino Python PaaS now has a free plan

By Vasudev Ram





I had blogged about Domino, a Python Platform-as-a-Service, earlier, here:

Domino, a Python PaaS for data science

and here:

Domino Python PaaS hits v1.0

Today I got to know via an email from one of the Domino founders, that Domino now as a free plan. Here is a screenshot showing it:

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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Domino, a Python PaaS for data science

By Vasudev Ram

Domino (dominoup.com) is a new Platform as a Service (PaaS) for data science. It supports Python, the R language and Matlab.

I saw it via a retweet by Cameron Laird (@Phaseit).

I signed up and tried Domino, using their sample Python project. It prints "hello", and plots a simple graph using matplotlib.

To do this, I had to download their command-line tool called domino; this is a one-time task. Then I used it to download the project to my PC.

Then I ran it on Domino, with "domino run main.py". This gives you a message that the run has started on their server, and prints a link where you can check the status of the run. The run command will also upload the project files if they are newer on your machine than on Domino. Running "domino" gives the help for the command, and they also have a help section on their web site with a lot of info.

I did encounter a couple of issues, one is fixed, the other is minor and will soon be fixed.

Here is a screenshot of the results:

They have an interactive web wizard that guides you through the steps of creating and running your first project, even though the steps are quite simple. And that is one thing I like about Domino. They seem to be trying to take the pain (and routine work) out of deployment and running of apps in the cloud. In fact, that's what they say on their home page, or words to that effect. Also, I've exchanged several emails with the founders, regarding various questions I had about Domino and its capabilities, and their responses have been prompt and helpful.

Domino also emails you a notification when the run ends, with a link you can click to see the results page, including the output, which you can download.

I was interested to see that Domino uses Docker, which has been in the news a lot lately.

Docker on Wikipedia.

An article on Linux.com about Docker: Docker: A 'Shipping Container' for Linux Code

Domino uses Docker - a post by Domino on the Docker blog.

[ Update: I checked a bit more and saw that Docker uses LXC (LinuX Containers), which in turn use cgroups, a Linux kernel feature originally written by two people at Google. according to Wikipedia. ]

Domino Data Lab on Twitter.

One of their tweets (in response to a query) says, "Perl coming soon. C on the list".

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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Free Python PaaS - Red Hat OpenShift free tier

Checking out Red Hat's Open Shift.

OpenShift is a PaaS (Platform as a Service) from Red Hat.

It supports Python, as well as many other popular languages.

It has a free tier.

I read about it here:

Self hosted Python web hosting platforms : Python

That Python Reddit link mentioning OpenShift also has some other interesting comments on the same overall topic of "Self hosted Python web hosting platforms".

- Vasudev.