[ofa-general] Re: [mwg] Re: RDMA tutorial and OFA

[Jeff Squyres]

I'd also like to call the IWG's and MWG's attention to the other  
thread currently running on the general list: "New proposal for memory  
management."

There are many points in there about attracting non-HPC / enterprise  
network programmers to write verbs-based applications.  It's not just  
documentation / education that is missing -- having a series of FAQs  
and tutorials about verbs programming is not enough.  You need a  
network programming API that is no more complex than common sockets  
usage.

Specifically: let's not forget that HPC (OF's biggest market right  
now) tends to attract network programmers with PhD's, and/or who are  
among the top programming talent in the world (yes, that's being  
snobbish -- but it's still true).  To make OF within reach of the  
masses, you want to lower the bar so that legions of sockets-based  
network programmers can hope to learn/use this stuff without requiring  
them to get a PhD first.



On Apr 30, 2009, at 6:12 PM, Ryan, Jim wrote:

> At the risk of piling on, I think what Lloyd is suggesting is very  
> important. The objections I continue to hear about programming using  
> RDMA are along the lines of "it's too hard" or "no one knows how to  
> do it".
>
> It occurs to me if we could provide some concise instruction, that,  
> coupled with the undeniable benefits of RDMA, could provide a  
> compelling package for "RDMA for the masses"
>
> thanks, Jim
>
> From: mwg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org [mailto:mwg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org 
> ] On Behalf Of Lloyd Dickman
> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 1:17 PM
> To: arkady kanevsky; bill.boas at openfabrics.org
> Cc: iwg at lists.openfabrics.org; Paul Grun; OFA at lists.openfabrics.org;  
> Paul Gray; Working Group; Wayne Augsburger; Andy Grover; Richard  
> Frank;Jeff at lists.openfabrics.org; Squyres; Mikkel Hagen; Scott at lists.openfabrics.org 
> ; general at lists.openfabrics.org; Friedman; bobs at voltaire.com;  
> Sumanta Chatterjee;asafs`@voltaire.com; Roland Dreier
> Subject: RE: [mwg] Re: RDMA tutorial and OFA
>
> I support the idea of the RDMA tutorial.  Beyond the “meat” as  
> described below, I would encourage the tutorial to include a “how to  
> program RDMA” section.  While OFA Verbs provides a rich set of  
> mechanisms, it is difficult for the average programmer to get a  
> solid handle on how to use the capabilities, register memory, …   
> Some cookbook examples, or perhaps development of several  
> programming “patterns” can go a long way to having RDMA become a  
> much more mainstream application programming paradigm.
>
> Lloyd
>
> From: mwg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org [mailto:mwg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org 
> ] On Behalf Of arkady kanevsky
> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 11:27 AM
> To: bill.boas at openfabrics.org
> Cc: iwg at lists.openfabrics.org; Paul Grun; Paul Gray; OFA Marketing  
> Working Group; Wayne Augsburger; Andy Grover; Richard Frank; asafs`@voltaire.com 
> ; Jeff Squyres; Mikkel Hagen;general at lists.openfabrics.org; Scott  
> Friedman; bobs at voltaire.com; Sumanta Chatterjee; Roland Dreier
> Subject: [mwg] Re: RDMA tutorial and OFA
>
> Keep me in the loop.
> I am interested to do it also.
> Thanks,
> Arkady
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Bill Boas  
> <Bill.Boas at openfabrics.org> wrote:
> Richard, Andy,
>
> Thanks for copying me Richard. I had not seen Andy's email on the  
> general
> list.
>
> Figuring out how to get tutorial and other documentation created and
> published in the list of things to get done in 2009 for me in my  
> part-time
> role as Exec. Dir.
>
> There is no funding set up for this at the moment but I believe  
> there will
> be in about 30 days.
>
> That's because I'm thinking that we can get funding for this by  
> making it
> part of the funding for a new marketing plan for OFA that, with Wayne
> Augsburger and Jim Ryan, we are preparing for the OFA Board to vote  
> on at
> the next con-call meeting which is on May 20 at 9.00AM PDT.
>
> Would you be willing to work with me and create a small team from  
> others
> within OFA who have the same interest to prepare a description by  
> May 20 of
> what the tutorial would look like, who would contribute to it, how  
> to get it
> "polished up" for web and/or book style publication, what the  
> overall costs
> would be, etc.
>
> My thoughts, that could be a starting point for the team's work, are  
> that we
> would make the creation a collective effort.
>
> The tutorial would have several sections for example general intro,  
> benefits
> of RDMA, applicability in HPC and Enterprise, networking background  
> etc.
> Members of the Marketing Working Group would be responsible for this.
>
> The "meat" would be sections for kernel level things (verbs etc.),  
> then user
> space things (verbs etc.), then APIs like MPI, SDP, EDS etc. - each  
> section
> overseen by the technical leaders/maintainers of the code within OFA  
> for
> that section (for Example Tom Talpey for NFSoRDMA, or you Richard  
> for RDS)
>
> Finally the tutorial would have sections about Interoperability  
> Testing that
> OFA/IOL does but also what customers can do on there own systems -  
> Arkady
> and Rupert and IOL have put in an SC09 tutorial proposal that we could
> leverage in this section.
>
> To all readers of this email:-
> If you have read this far, please give us all some feedback. If you  
> have
> material you'd like to contribute please say so. If there's a better  
> way,
> tell us what you think it is!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill.
>
> Bill Boas
> Executive Director and Vice Chair
> OpenFabrics Alliance
> 510-375-8840
> Bill.Boas at openfabrics.org
> www.openfabrics.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Frank [mailto:richard.frank at oracle.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 12:58 PM
> To: Andy Grover
> Cc: Bill Boas; Sumanta Chatterjee
> Subject: Re: RDMA tutorial and OFA
>
> Andy, I saw your postings to ofa-general on this and I agree it  
> would be
> great to have this documentation.
>
> As OpenFabrics is really about RDMA... we need to make it simpler
> for folks to pick up and run with RDMA concepts ...vs.. digging thru  
> the IB
> specs and code examples, etc.
>
> Let's see what Bill Boas thinks...perhaps OFA has a writer on board  
> that
> can help us do this..?
>
> I can also help provide input for a new OFA RDMA tutorial doc..
>
> Rick
>
> Andy Grover wrote:
> > Hi Rick,
> >
> > Are you around for a brief chat this afternoon? I have a crazy  
> idea that
> > involves OFA doing something (or putting up $$) and I wanted to  
> see what
> > you thought, since you're Oracle's OFA rep, right?
> >
> > -- Andy
> >
> >
>
>
>
> -- 
> Cheers,
> Arkady Kanevsky


-- 
Jeff Squyres
Cisco Systems