Sun HPC ClusterTools 3.0 Software

Sun HPC ClusterTools 3.0 software is an integrated ensemble of parallel development tools that extend Sun's network computing solutions to high-end distributed-memory applications. Sun HPC ClusterTools products can be used either with the CRE or with LSF Suite 3.2.3, Platform Computing Corporation's resource-management software.

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Note -

If you are using LSF Suite instead of the CRE for workload management, you should be reading the Sun MPI 4.0 User's Guide: With LSF instead of this document.

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The principal components of Sun HPC ClusterTools Software are described in "Sun Cluster Runtime Environment" through "Sun S3L".

Sun Cluster Runtime Environment

The CRE is a cluster administration and job launching facility. It provides users with an interactive command-line interface for executing jobs on the cluster and for obtaining information about job activity and cluster resources.

The CRE also performs load-balancing for programs running in shared partitions.

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Note -

Load balancing, partitions, and other related Sun HPC cluster concepts are discussed in "Fundamental CRE Concepts".

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Sun MPI and MPI I/O

Sun MPI is a highly optimized version of the Message-Passing Interface (MPI) communications library. Sun MPI implements all of the MPI 1.2 standard as well as a significant subset of the MPI 2.0 feature list. For example, Sun MPI provides the following features:

• Support for multithreaded programming.

• Seamless use of different network protocols; for example, code compiled on a Sun HPC cluster that has a Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) network, can be run without change on a cluster that has an ATM network.

• Multiprotocol support such that MPI picks the fastest available medium for each type of connection (such as shared memory, SCI, or ATM).

• Communication via shared memory for fast performance on clusters of SMPs.

• Finely tunable shared memory communication.

• Optimized collectives for symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs).

• Prism support - Users can develop, run, and debug programs in the Prism programming environment.

• MPI I/O support for parallel file I/O.

• Sun MPI is a dynamic library.

Sun MPI and MPI I/O provide full F77, C, and C++ support and Basic F90 support.

Parallel File System

The Sun Parallel File System (PFS) component of the Sun HPC ClusterTools suite of software provides high-performance file I/O for multiprocess applications running in a cluster-based, distributed-memory environment.

PFS file systems closely resemble UFS file systems, but provide significantly higher file I/O performance by striping files across multiple PFS I/O server nodes. This means the time required to read or write a PFS file can be reduced by an amount roughly proportional to the number of file server nodes in the PFS file system.

PFS is optimized for the large files and complex data access patterns that are characteristic of parallel scientific applications.

Prism

Prism is the Sun HPC graphical programming environment. It allows you to develop, execute, debug, and visualize data in message-passing programs. With Prism you can

• Control various aspects of program execution, such as:

  • Starting and stopping execution.

  • Setting breakpoints and traces.

  • Printing values of variables and expressions.

  • Displaying the call stack.

• Visualize data in various formats.

• Analyze performance of MPI programs.

• Aggregate processes across multiprocess parallel jobs into meaningful groups, called process sets or psets.

Prism can be used with applications written in F77, F90, C, and C++.

Sun S3L

The Sun Scalable Scientific Subroutine Library (Sun S3L) provides a set of parallel and scalable functions and tools that are used widely in scientific and engineering computing. It is built on top of MPI and provides the following functionality for Sun MPI programmers:

• Vector and dense matrix operations (level 1, 2, 3 Parallel BLAS).

• Iterative solvers for sparse systems.

• Matrix-vector multiply for sparse systems.

• FFT

• LU factor and solve.

• Autocorrelation.

• Convolution/deconvolution.

• Tridiagonal solvers.

• Banded solvers.

• Eigensolvers.

• Singular value decomposition.

• Least squares.

• One-dimensional sort.

• Multidimensional sort.

• Selected ScaLAPACK and BLACS application program interface.

• Conversion between ScaLAPACK and S3L.

• Matrix transpose.

• Random number generators (linear congruential and lagged Fibonacci).

• Random number generator and I/O for sparse systems.

• Matrix inverse.

• Array copy.

• Safety mechanism.

• An array syntax interface callable from message-passing programs.

• Toolkit functions for operations on distributed data.

• Support for the multiple instance paradigm (allowing an operation to be applied concurrently to multiple, disjoint data sets in a single call).

• Thread safety.

• Detailed programming examples and support documentation provided online.

Sun S3L routines can be called from applications written in F77, F90, C, and C++.