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 >
Jeff, OpenMPI is more or less a user-space program, and isn't that tightly coupled to the OS at all. As long as the OS has the correct network drivers (ethernet, IB, or other), that's all OpenMPI needs to do it's job. In fact, you can install it yourself in your own home directory (if your home directory is shared amongst the cluster nodes you want to use), and run it from there - no special privileges needed. I have many different versions of OpenMPI installed on my systems, without a problem. As a system administrator responsible for maintaining OpenMPI on several clusters, it sounds like one of two things: 1. Your system administrators really don't know what they're talking about, or, 2. They're lying to you to avoid doing work. -- Prentice
