Introduction to Sun HPC ClusterTools Software

C H A P T E R 1

Sun HPC ClusterTools trademark 8 software is a set of parallel development tools that extend the Sun network computing solutions to high-end distributed-memory applications. This chapter summarizes its required configuration and principal components. It contains the following sections:

Supported Configurations

Open Runtime Environment (ORTE)

Integration With Distributed Resource Management Systems

Open MPI Features

Debugging With TotalView

Supported Configurations

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8 software requires the Solaris trademark 10 Operating System (Solaris 10 OS). All programs that execute under the Solaris 10 OS will execute in the Sun HPC ClusterTools environment.

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8 software supports Sun Studio 10, 11, and 12 C, C++, and Fortran compilers on the Solaris OS, and the Sun Studio 12 and GNU gcc compilers on Linux..

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8 software can run MPI jobs of up to 4096 processes on as many as 1024 nodes. It also provides support for spawning MPI processes.

The Sun HPC ClusterTools 8 software runs on clusters connected by any TCP/IP-capable interconnect, such as high-speed Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and Infiniband.

Open Runtime Environment (ORTE)

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8 is based on the Open MPI message-passing interface. Open MPI operates using the Open Runtime Environment (ORTE). ORTE starts jobs and provides some status information.

The Open MPI mpirun and mpiexec commands are actually symbolic links to the orterun command. All three commands perform the same function, which is to launch MPI jobs.

ORTE is compatible with a number of other launchers, including rsh/ssh, Sun Grid Engine, and PBS Professional/Torque.

Each of ORTE’s primary operations is summarized in the sections that follow. Subsequent chapters contain the procedures.

Executing Programs With `mpirun`

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8 software can start both serial and parallel jobs. The syntax and use of mpirun are described in Chapter 5.

Integration With Distributed Resource Management Systems

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8 software provides new integration facilities with two select distributed resource management (DRM) systems. These systems provide proper resource allocation, parallel job control and monitoring, and proper job accounting. They are:

Sun Grid Engine Version 6.1 software

Altair PBS Professional 9.2, or Cluster Resources Torque 2.3

Note - Open MPI itself supports other third-party launchers supported by Open MPI, such as SLURM. However, these launchers are currently not supported in Sun HPC ClusterTools software. To use these other third-party launchers, you must download the Open MPI source, compile, and link with the libraries for the launchers.

You can launch parallel jobs directly from these distributed resource management systems. The DRM interacts closely with ORTE for proper resource description and with the multiple processes comprising the requested parallel job.

For a description of the scalable and open architecture of the DRM integration facilities, see How the Open MPI Environment Is Integrated With Distributed Resource Management Systems. For instructions, see Chapter 6.

Open MPI Features

Open MPI is a highly optimized version of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) communications library. It implements all of the MPI 1.2 Standard and the MPI 2.0 Standard. Its highlights are:

Integration with the Open Runtime Environment (ORTE)

Support for MPI I/O

Seamless use of different network protocols; for example, code compiled on a Sun HPC cluster that has fast Ethernet network can be run without change on a cluster that has an Infiniband network

Multiprotocol support so that MPI picks the fastest available medium for each type of connection (such as shared memory, fast Ethernet, Infiniband)

Communication via shared memory for fast performance

Optimized collectives for multiprocessors and clusters of multiprocessors

Full F77, C, and C⁺⁺ support, and basic F90 support

Debugging With TotalView

TotalView is a third-party multiprocess debugger from TotalView Technologies (formerly Etnus) that runs on many platforms. Support for using the TotalView debugger on Open MPI applications includes:

Making Sun HPC ClusterTools software compatible with the TotalView debugger

Allowing Open MPI jobs to be debugged by TotalView using the Sun Grid Engine or the Portable Batch System (PBS)

Allowing multiple instantiations of TotalView on a single cluster

Supporting TotalView in Sun HPC ClusterTools software

Refer to the TotalView documentation at http://www.totalviewtech.com for more information about using TotalView.

In addition, the Open MPI Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) contains information about how to use the TotalView debugger with Open MPI. This information is available at:

http://www.open-mpi.org/faq/?category=running#run-with-tv