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Conference call notes 20200930

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Kenneth Hoste edited this page Oct 14, 2020 · 4 revisions

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Notes on the 157th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday September 30th 2020 (08:00 UTC - 10:00 CEST)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (9):

  • Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)
  • Alex Domingo (VUB, Belgium)
  • Simon Branford (Univ. of Birmingham, UK)
  • Alan O'Cais (Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Germany)
  • Jörg Saßmannshausen (NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, UK)
  • Terje Kvernes (University of Oslo, Norway)
  • Lars Viklund (Umeå University, Sweden)
  • Victor Holanda Rusu (CSCS, Switzerland)
  • Adam Huffman (Big Data Institute, Oxford, UK)

Agenda

  • recent developments
  • 2020b update for common toolchains (foss, intel)
  • 2020a update of fosscuda
  • ideas for next EasyBuild User Meeting
  • Q&A

Recent developments

  • ETA next release (probably EasyBuild v4.3.1): mid Oct?
  • recent changes
    • framework
      • fixes for GCC toolchain for aarch64/Arm64 (PR #3433)
        • Terje: more changes like this will be needed, related to specific toolchain options
    • easyblocks
      • set $EB_INSTALLPYTHON in module generated for EasyBuild rather than setting $EB_PYTHON, to allow overriding Python command to be used for running EasyBuild with $EB_PYTHON (PR #2109)
      • update TensorFlow easyblock to put Bazel build files in build directory + avoid unnecessary runtime patching (PR #2166)
      • added XLA build support to TensorFlow easyblock (PR #2182)
      • also consider libfabric dep (--with-ofi) when setting default OpenMPI configure options (PR #2184)
      • configure OpenMPI 4.x with --without-verbs when using UCX (PR #2188)
    • easyconfigs
      • TensorFlow 2.3.0 (PR #11040)
        • note: being updatied in-place to TensorFlow 2.3.1 (PR #11375)
      • R 3.6.2 with intel/2019b (PR #11298)
      • UCX 1.9.0 (PR #11320)
      • add libevent, libfabric and PMIx dependencies to OpenMPI 4.0.3 (for foss/2020a & iomkl/2020a) (PR #11387)
      • use more EasyBuild installed dependencies for TensorFlow 2.2.0 (PR #11224)
      • removed incorrect Taiyaki easyconfigs (PR #11301)
        • incorrect PyTorch dependency: v1.3.1 while v1.2.0 is strictly required
        • replaced with new Taiyaki easyconfigs that depend on PyTorch 1.2.0 (PR #11297)
      • remove glog and gflags dependencies from PyTorch easyconfigs, since they cause trouble (PR #11327, PR #11322, PR #11323)
      • add protobuf-python as a dependency and corresponding sanity check to PyTorch 1.6 (PR #11390)
      • add patch to fix installation of LAMMPS 7Aug2019 on AMD Epyc systems (PR #11334)
      • patch out bug in collective primitive in TensorFlow 2.2.0 (PR #11175)
      • various minor fixes to fix installation on CentOS8/RHEL8
  • to merge soon:
    • framework
      • advise PR labels in --review-pr and add support for --add-pr-labels (PR #3177)
      • add gcccorecuda toolchain (PR #3385)
        • no longer blocking fosscuda/2020a?
      • architecture-specific filtering of dependencies (PR #3429)
        • hardcoded filtering of Yasm on aarch64/Arm64 :-/
      • enhance apply_regex_substitutions to allow specifying action to take in case there are no matches (PR #3440)
      • take into account --include-easyblocks-from-pr when uploading test reports (PR #3446)
      • add path to pkg-config files in sysroot to $PKG_CONFIG_PATH when --sysroot is specified (PR #3451)
      • avoid appending lib stubs pattern to RPATH filter over and over again (PR #3452)
      • add support for NVHPC compiler + toolchain (based on PGI) (PR #3454)
    • easyblocks
      • make OpenBLAS easyblock optarch-aware (PR #1946)
        • Alex: archspec functionality like this should be hoisted into framework so it can be leveraged from other easyblocks easily
      • improve config checks for Boost.MPI and Boost.Python and fix sanity checks of MT libs (PR #2167)
      • custom easyblock for RAxML (PR #2180)
      • custom easyblock for NVHPC (PR #2190)
    • easyconfigs
      • OpenMPI v4.0.5 (for foss/2020b) (PR #11333)
      • gompic/2020a + iccifortcuda/2020a subtoolchains with CUDA 11.0.2 (base for fosscuda/2020a) (PR #11295)
      • in-place update of TensorFlow 2.3.0 easyconfigs to version 2.3.1 (PR #11375)
      • stick to Python 2 as build dep for Qt5 5.13.1 (PR #11386)
        • only relevant when there's no python2 in the OS
      • use EasyBlock for PyTorch 1.3.1 and remove glog & gflags (PR #11325)
      • GROMACS 2020.03 w/ fosscuda/2019b (PR #11398)
      • WRF 4.1.3 (PR #11389)

Updates on fosscuda/2020a

2020b update of common toolchains

  • base: GCC 10.2 + binutils 2.35 (see PR #11056)
  • foss:
  • intel:
    • see PR #11337
      • WIP, problems with impi + UCX (only on CentOS8?)
      • Alex has tested this extensively, works very well, resolves all earlier issues with impi
    • compilers: 2020 update 3 (Aug 21st 2020)
    • MPI: 2019 update 8 (Jul 15th 2020)
    • MKL: 2020 update 3 (Sept 1st 2020)
    • is GCC 10.x supported officially as base compiler?
      • strictly according to release notes: no => "gcc 4.8.5 to gcc 9.0.1" and "binutils 2.27 to binutils 2.31.1", but that seems very conservative
      • Kenneth has contacted Intel guy, no reply yet...
  • recent progress:
    • Perl 5.32.0 with GCCcore/10.2.0 (PR #11201)
  • Python
    • no more versionsuffix when using Python 3 as a dep

Ideas for next EasyBuild User Meeting

  • only online in 2021
    • no dates set yet, probably end of Jan/early Feb 2021
  • mix of talks and interactive sessions (+ tutorial?)
  • "workshops" with specific topics
    • to help people plan which sessions they want to join
    • focused sessions on use of EasyBuild on AMD, Arm64, ...
    • talks on related projects (ReFrame 3.x, OpenHPC 2.0, EESSI, ...)
  • live talks with streaming to YouTube
    • but with registration for people who join the Zoom sessions
    • to avoid Zoom bombing, have an idea of how many people will attend, etc.
    • recorded talks will be available on EasyBuild YouTube channel shortly after
  • pre-recording of talks?
    • Kenneth: I would like to avoid that...
    • but people could opt-in if they prefer to
  • can use breakout rooms in Zoom
    • can we record these too?
  • Terje could possibly provide webinar licenses
    • gives better control of who gets voice/sharing/camera rights
    • webinar license with 500 seats will be relatively cheap soon

Q&A

  • (none)
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