[ewg] Announcing the release of MVAPICH2 1.4

[Dhabaleswar Panda]

The MVAPICH team is pleased to announce the release of MVAPICH2 1.4 with
the following NEW features:

- MPI 2.1 standard compliant

- Based on MPICH2 1.0.8p1

- Dynamic Process Management (DPM) Support with mpirun_rsh and MPD
   - Available for OpenFabrics (IB) interface

- Support for eXtended Reliable Connection (XRC)
   - Available for OpenFabrics (IB) interface

- Native support for QLogic InfiniPath
   - Provides support over PSM interface

- Support for RDMAoE (RDMA over Ethernet) with ConnectX-EN adapter

- Kernel-level single-copy intra-node communication support based on
  LiMIC2
   - Delivers superior intra-node performance for medium and
     large messages
   - Available for all interfaces (IB, iWARP, uDAPL and RDMAoE)

- Enhancement to mpirun_rsh framework for faster job startup
  on large clusters
   - Hierarchical ssh to nodes to speedup job startup
   - Available for all interfaces (IB, iWARP, uDAPL and RDMAoE)

- Scalable checkpoint-restart with mpirun_rsh framework
   - Checkpoint-restart with intra-node shared memory (kernel-level with
     LiMIC2) support
   - Check-point Restart with Fault-Tolerant Backplane (FTB-CR) Support
      - Available for OpenFabrics (IB) Interface

- K-nomial tree-based solution together with shared memory-based
  broadcast for scalable MPI_Bcast operation
   - Available for all interfaces (IB, iWARP, uDAPL and RDMAoE)

- Optimal runtime CPU binding

- Multiple CQ-based design for Chelsio 10GigE/iWARP

This release also contains multiple bug fixes since MVAPICH2-1.2p1,
MVAPICH2 1.4RC1 and MVAPICH2 1.4RC2. Summary of the major fixes are
available from MVAPICH2 download page (under Changelog link).

MVAPICH2 1.4 is being made available with OFED 1.5. It continues to
deliver excellent performance. Sample performance numbers include:

  OpenFabrics/Gen2 on Nehalem quad-core (2.4 GHz) with PCIe-Gen2
      and ConnectX-QDR (Two-sided Operations):
        - 1.61 microsec one-way latency (4 bytes)
        - 3026 MB/sec unidirectional bandwidth
        - 5854 MB/sec bidirectional bandwidth

  QLogic InfiniPath Support on Nehalem quad-core (2.4 GHz) with
      PCIe-Gen2 and QLogic-DDR (Two-sided Operations):
        - 2.15 microsec one-way latency (4 bytes)
        - 1603 MB/sec unidirectional bandwidth
        - 2108 MB/sec unidirectional bandwidth

  OpenFabrics/Gen2-RDMAoE (RDMA over Ethernet) Support on
      Clovertown quad-core (2.4 GHz) with ConnectX-EN
      (Two-sided operations):
        - 2.99 microsec one-way latency (4 bytes)
        - 1142 MB/sec unidirectional bandwidth
        - 2282 MB/sec bidirectional bandwidth

Performance numbers for several other platforms, system configurations
and operations (including intra-node shared memory and collectives)
can be viewed by visiting `Performance' section of the project's
web page.

For downloading MVAPICH2 1.4, associated user guide and accessing the
SVN, please visit the following URL:

http://mvapich.cse.ohio-state.edu

All feedbacks, including bug reports and hints for performance tuning,
patches and enhancements are welcome. Please post it to the
mvapich-discuss mailing list.

We are also happy to inform that the number of organizations using
MVAPICH/MVAPICH2 and registered at the MVAPICH site has crossed 1,000
world-wide (in 52 countries). The MVAPICH team extends thanks to all
these organizations.

Thanks,

The MVAPICH Team