[CentOS-devel] SIG Proposal - High performance computing (HPC) SIG

[Ondřej Vašík]

Marcin Dulak píše v Ne 23. 04. 2017 v 15:13 +0200:
> 
> 
> On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 2:09 PM, Ondřej Vašík <ovasik at redhat.com>
> wrote:
>         Hi,
>         
>         I would like to propose start of High performance computing
>         (HPC) SIG. I
>         see it already mentioned on
>         https://wiki.centos.org/SpecialInterestGroup
>         among Future SIGs. Primary reason for the SIG existence will
>         be to
>         improve the state of High performance computing related
>         packages on
>         CentOS and similar distributions, with special focus on
>         stability of
>         builds, CentOS (and similar distribution) related improvements
>         for
>         OpenHPC project and getting new HPC packages packaged for
>         CentOS and/or
>         Fedora.
> 
> 
> Good to see an initiative to get the tools specific for HPC packaged,
> but I have a comment.
> Under https://github.com/openhpc/ohpc/tree/obs/OpenHPC_1.3_Factory/components/io-libs I see spec files for software like netcdf or hdf5.
> 
> 
> On a cluster one needs access to **many** versions of libraries (that
> includes compilers, python, mpi, etc.) and
> packaging them as RPMS is not the correct model, unless the HPC system
> uses VM golden images or container images, and allows the users to
> start them on-demand.
> What is usually used is a setup based on lmod/environment-modules like
> https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-easyconfigs

Yes, understood, thanks for the comment. With containers being more and
more popular, I think even packaging these applications and libraries
makes more sense. Of course, optimizing build for the specific system
would be even better, but package still gives you a way how to easily
install/update/remove some application with all its dependencies.

For many versions of libs and compilers - sometimes it may make sense to
create a matrix of rpms like is done in the case of openHPC initiative,
sometimes probably software collections can be used to get multiple
versions of library/dependency on the system in parallel.

Goal is not to solve everything - this is of course out of scope - but
to improve current situation and maybe to start discussion like this -
how to proceed, what is missing and what is expected to be missing
(because it doesn't make sense to have it as distribution package).

Regards,
       Ondrej

> 
> 
> I would therefore prefer the OpenHPC project focuses in the first
> place on the tools a single version of which is installed on the
> operating system.
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> 
> Marcin
>  
>         
>         Initial members would be me (ovasik at redhat.com, CentOS FAS
>         account:
>         Reset), Adrian Reber (areber at redhat.com, CentOS FAS account:
>         areber),
>         Stanislav Kozina (skozina at redhat.com, CentOS FAS account:
>         ersin)
>         and Jan Chaloupka (jchaloup at fedoraproject.org, CentOS FAS
>         account:
>         jchaloup). Of course, anyone is welcome to join.
>         
>         Thanks in advance for approving/sponsoring the SIG.
>         
>         Regards,
>                Ondrej Vasik
>         
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> 
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