Jeff,

We have 3 Rocks Clusters, while there is a default MPI with each

Rocks Release, it is often behind the latest production release as

you note.

We typically install whatever OpenMPI version we want in a shared space

and ignore the default installed with Rocks. Sometimes there standard

Linux libraries that can be a bit out of date which may be registered as

"can't finds" in the configuration and/or buiild of OpenMPI, but there usually an

easy go around. As far as 'closely intertwined' goes, I would say that

is an exaggeration.

It does mean some extra work for someone ... around here is it me ... ;-) ...

rbw

Richard Walsh
Parallel Applications and Systems Manager
CUNY HPC Center, Staten Island, NY
718-982-3319
612-382-4620

Reason does give the heart pause;
As the heart gives reason fits.

Yet, to live where reason always rules;
Is to kill one's heart with wits.

From: users-bounces@open-mpi.org [users-bounces@open-mpi.org] on behalf of Jeffrey A Cummings [Jeffrey.A.Cummings@aero.org]
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 5:02 PM
To: users@open-mpi.org
Subject: [OMPI users] How closely tied is a specific release of OpenMPI to the host operating system and other system software?

I use OpenMPI on a variety of platforms: stand-alone servers running Solaris on sparc boxes and Linux (mostly CentOS) on AMD/Intel boxes, also Linux (again CentOS) on large clusters of AMD/Intel boxes. These platforms all have some version of the 1.3 OpenMPI stream. I recently requested an upgrade on all systems to 1.4.3 (for production work) and 1.5.1 (for experimentation). I'm getting a lot of push back from the SysAdmin folks claiming that OpenMPI is closely intertwined with the specific version of the operating system and/or other system software (i.e., Rocks on the clusters). I need to know if they are telling me the truth or if they're just making excuses to avoid the work. To state my question another way: Apparently each release of Linux and/or Rocks comes with some version of OpenMPI bundled in. Is it dangerous in some way to upgrade to a newer version of OpenMPI? Thanks in advance for any insight anyone can provide.

- Jeff