We have similar circumstances and have been able to install and use versions of openmpi newer than supplied with the OS. It is necessary to have some means of path management to ensure that applications build against the desired version of openmpi and run with the version of openmpi they were built with. We use the module system for this path management. We create modules for each version of openmpi and each version of the applications. We than include the appropriate openmpi module in the module for the application. Then when a user loads a module for their application they automatically get the correct version of openmpi.

Doug Reeder

On Feb 1, 2011, at 2:02 PM, Jeffrey A Cummings wrote:

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_______________________________________________
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