Re: [9fans] plan9 for calculations

["Roman V. Shaposhnik" <rvs@Sun.COM>]

On 03/27/09 14:31, Rudolf Sykora wrote:
> Hello everybody,
>
> I noticed there are some thoughts about using plan9 on supercomputers.
> For me supercomputers are usually used to do some heavy calculations.
> And this leads me to a question. What software is then used for
> programming these calculations? (I mean e.g. linear algebra, i.e.
> matrix, calculations.) Where can one read about that?
>
If you are talking about established practices then supercomputing *almost*
always means Infiniband+MPI (managed by a grid engine).
On fat nodes (the kind of machines Sun used to sell) you might also find
 OpenMP. But there will always be MPI, since doesn't mean how fat the
node is -- the cluster is fatter. On the language side I've seen
predominantly
Fortran and C++, although Ron was telling me horror stories about Python
 and some other goo. As far as the libraries go: linpack is almost
always there, but the good place to take a look at what's relevant is here:
   http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-0497
> PS.: It could be that plan9, being more a os-research system than
> anything else, is simply no suitable for such a use (there are no
> plotting libraries, other utilities). Perhaps it's not a good idea at
> all to try to use plan9 like that because it would be more work than
> anything. Maybe using linux for such things with all its tools is just
> ok. If you share this idea, just say it too, please.
>
My personal take is that Plan9's forte might be the sane clustering of
things.
MPI and grid engines is really quite horrible, but it is pervasive.

Thanks,
Roman.