New Cray OS Brings ISVs in for a Soft Landing

Cray has never made a big deal about the custom Linux operating system it packages with its XT supercomputing line. In general, companies don't like to tout proprietary OS environments since they tend to lock custom codes in and third-party ISV applications out. But the third generation Cray Linux Environment (CLE3) that the company announced  is designed to make elite supercomputing an ISV-friendly experience.

Besides adding compatibility to off-the-shelf ISV codes, which we'll get to in a moment, the newly-minted Cray OS contains a number of other enhancements. In the performance realm, CLE3 increases overall scalability to greater than 500,000 cores (up from 200,000 in CLE2), adds Lustre 1.8 support, and includes some advanced scheduler features. Cray also added a feature called "core specialization," which allows the user to pin a single core on the node to the OS and devote the remainder to application code. According to Cray, on some types of codes, this can bump performance 10 to 20 percent. CLE3 also brings with it some additional reliability features, including NodeKARE, a diagnostic capability that makes sure jobs are running on healthy nodes.

But the biggest new feature added to CLE3 is compatibility with standard HPC codes from independent software vendors (ISVs). This new capability has the potential to open up a much broader market for Cray's flagship XT product line, and further blur the line between proprietary supercomputers and traditional HPC clusters.

Cray has had an on-again off-again relationship with HPC software vendors. Many of the established ISVs in this space grew up alongside Cray Research, and software from companies like CEI, LSTC, SIMULIA, and CD-adapco actually ran on the original Cray Research machines. Over time, these vendors migrated to standard x86 Linux and Windows systems, which became their prime platforms, and dropped products that required customized solutions for supercomputers. Cray left most of the commercial ISVs behind as it focused on high-end HPC and custom applications.


Programming Environment of CLE
The CLE programming environment includes tools designed to complement and enhance each other, resulting in a rich, easy-to-use programming environment that facilitates the development of scalable applications.

• Parallel programming models: MPI, SHMEM, UPC, OpenMP, and Co-Array Fortran within the node
• MPI 2.0 standard, optimized to take advantage of the scalable interconnect in the Cray XT system
• Various MPI libraries supported under Cluster Compatibility Mode
• Optimized C, C++, UPC, Fortran90, and Fortran 2003 compilers
• High-performance optimized math libraries of BLAS, FFTs, LAPACK, ScaLAPACK, SuperLU, and Cray Scientiific Libraries
• Cray Apprentice2 performance analysis tools 

(Full version of this article can be obtained from HPCwire's web pages)