[ofa-general] RE: [ewg] RFC: Do we wish to take MPI out of OFED?

[Jeff Squyres]

A few clarifications are probably worthwhile at this point.

1. No one is suggesting divorcing MPI from the OFED testing/release  
cycle.  It's obviously a Good Thing (and has been stated multiple  
times on this thread).  It is easy to indicate "good combos" of MPI  
and OFED in documentation and web pages.  However, most users expect  
the latest MPI implementation versions to work with the latest version  
of OFED (which is not unreasonable).  Looking for compatibility  
between older MPI/OFED versions is something that is almost always  
relegated to googling.

2. The distinction between development and release phases seems to  
have been blurred in this discussion.  The development phase is where  
MPI's collaborate with verbs developers to test new APIs,  
functionality, etc.  OFED is the final product, not the development  
phase.  Hence, I'm not sure that the point of "continual improvements  
in MPI depend on bug fixes/new features in OFED" is relevant.

3. As Doug described, packaging MPI and OFED together actually makes  
it *harder* for distros.  Remember that RHEL and SUSE don't end up  
using any of the OFED packaging; they essentially use the individual  
SRPMs.




On Jun 5, 2009, at 8:37 AM, John Russo wrote:

> I agree with DK from OSU.  There are clear advantages to having MPI  
> included with OFED.  Not only will it make testing of a complete  
> solution easier by both OFED and MPI suppliers, but it will also  
> improve ease of use for end users and ease of inclusion for linux  
> distro suppliers.  As DK points out there are continual improvements  
> in MPIs which may depend on bug fixes and/or new features in newer  
> versions of OFED.  Identifying a known good combination will be  
> important to most end users, etc.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org [mailto:ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org 
> ] On Behalf Of Dhabaleswar Panda
> Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 2:02 PM
> To: Tziporet Koren
> Cc: EWG; OpenFabrics General
> Subject: Re: [ewg] RFC: Do we wish to take MPI out of OFED?
>
> Tziporet,
>
> >Main reasons to keep MPI in OFED:
> >- All participants test with the same MPI versions, and when  
> installing
> >OFED it is ensured that MPI will work fine with this version.
> >- Customers convenience in install (no need to go to more sites to  
> get
> MPI)
> >- MPI is an important RDMA ULP and although it is not developed in  
> OFA
> >it is widely used by OFED customers
>
> I support keeping MPI packages in the OFED because of the above  
> positive
> points you have mentioned.
>
> I would also like to mention that keeping MPI packages in OFED helps  
> to
> test out various new features and functionalities (such as APM and  
> XRC in
> the past and the new memory registration scheme being discussed now)  
> as
> they get introduced. Such an integrated approach helps to test out  
> these
> features at the lower layers as well as at the MPI layer. This process
> helps to resolve out any bugs with the new features during the testing
> process itself. It also accelerates the deployment and use of these  
> new
> features in the community.
>
> However, to make the complete OFED release process work smoothly for
> everybody (vendors, distros, users, etc.) without affecting the  
> release
> schedule, it is essential that stable MPI packages are added to  
> OFED. This
> is what we have been doing wrt MVAPICH and MVAPICH2 for the last  
> several
> years.
>
> If the developers of any MPI package do not want it to be a part of  
> the
> OFED due to any constraints, it should be allowed. However, such an  
> action
> should not force to remove all MPI packages.
>
> >From the point of view of MVAPICH and MVAPICH2 packages in OFED, we  
> have
> been providing stable packages to OFED for the last several years  
> helping
> the OFED community and would like to continue with this process.
>
> Thanks,
>
> DK
>
>
>
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-- 
Jeff Squyres
Cisco Systems