3.6.2 Enable MKL Support for Oracle R Distribution on a Windows Client

Follow these steps to enable MKL for Oracle R Distribution on a Windows client (64-bit).

1. Install MKL. You can download MKL from the Intel® Math Kernel Library website:

   Note: To install MKL on your computer, you must have an MKL license.

2. Add the location of libOrdBlasLoader.dll and mkl_rt.dll to the PATH system environment variable.

   Note:

   In a typical installation of Oracle R Distribution, libOrdBlasLoader.dll is located in the R home directory:

   C:\Program Files\R\R-version\bin\x64
   

   In a full installation of MKL 11.1, mkl_rt.dll is located in the Intel MKL Composer XE directory:

   C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Composer XE 2013 SP

3. Start R and execute the Sys.BlasLapack function:

   R> Sys.BlasLapack()
        $vendor
        [1] "Intel Math Kernel Library (Intel MKL)"
        $nthreads
        [1] -1
   

The returned value of $vendor indicates that MKL has replaced the BLAS and LAPACK that are native to R.

The returned value of nthreads indicates the number of threads to be used by MKL. By default all available threads are used ($nthreads= -1).

• Modify the Number of Threads for MKL on Windows
  You can change the number of threads to be used by MKL by editing the system environment variable MKL_NUM_THREADS.