Conference call notes 20200120 - easybuilders/easybuild GitHub Wiki

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Notes on the 140th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday Jan 22nd 2020 (17:00 - 18:00 CET)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (5):

• Adam Huffman (Big Data Institute, UK)
• Victor Holanda Rusu (CSCS, Switzerland)
• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)
• Alan O'Cais (JSC, Germany)
• Valentin Plugaru (University of Luxembourg)

Agenda

• update on defining 2020a toolchains
• Q&A

Update on defining 2020a toolchains

	2019b	current latest version	2020a
GCC	8.3.0	9.2 (Aug'19)	9.2 (or 9.3?)
binutils	2.32	2.33.1 (Oc't19)	2.33.1 (or stick to 2.32?)
OpenMPI	3.1.4	4.0.2 (Oct'19)	4.0.2 (or 4.0.3?)
OpenBLAS	0.3.7	0.3.7 (Aug'19)	0.3.7 (or newer)
ScaLAPACK	2.0.2	2.1.0 (Nov'19)	2.1.0
FFTW	3.3.8	3.3.8 (May'18)	3.3.8
iccifort	2019 update 5	2020 initial (Dec'19)	2019 update 5 or 2020 initial?
impi	2018.5.288	2019 update 6 (Dec'19)	2019 update 6?
imkl	2019.5.281	2020 initial (Dec'19)	2019 update 5 or 2020 initial?

• https://easybuild.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Common-toolchains.html

• 2020a definition on hold for now

  • mostly waiting for OpenMPI v4.0.3 release (end of Jan'20?)
  • it seems like GCC 9.3 is months away (Mar-Apr maybe even May), so won't wait for that
  • need to check on:
    • new OpenBLAS release?
    • compatibility of GCC 9.2 with latest Intel compilers?

Q&A

• Victor: Clang-based toolchain as a part of common toolchains?

  • Alan: f18 (will be renamed for flang soon) should become a usable Fortran compiler soon
    • see also http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2020-January/138418.html
  • request was motivated by syncing up dev env between macOS & Linux

• Victor: automate update of toolchain when a component is updated

  • when there's a new OpenMPI release, also update all toolchains using it (+ HPL easyconfig)
  • components:
    • compilers: GCC (+ Intel? Clang?)
    • MPI: OpenMPI, MPICH (easyblock needs an update w.r.t. UCX), MVAPICH, Intel MPI
    • math libs: OpenBLAS, MKL, FFTW (+ BLIS)

• Valentin: AOCL (AMD Opt libs, incl. BLIS/FFTW)

  • important for AMD Rome processors
  • hoping to provide feedback on experiences by mid May?
  • Adam: playing with modified foss toolchain with GCC 9.2
  • also used at Univ. of Warwick
  • Kenneth was contacted by AMD on problems with EasyBuild, but very little details were provided, no word back on request for more information

• Victor: way to reproduce an entire software stack on another system?

  • support in EasyBuild to "scan" an existing software stacks and collect all that is needed to reproduce it (from the 'reprod' subdirectories)
  • dump the information in a single 'file'
    • or SQL DB so you can 'tweak' the stack easily (e.g. remove stuff, change deps, etc.)
  • and have a way to let EB reproduce the stack from this on another system
  • Valentin: see resif project (https://github.com/ULHPC/resif)
    • plan remote talk on Resif to present it to the EasyBuild community?