Over at the ARM Connected Community, Darren Cepulis, writes that the popular chip platform is now part of the OpenHPC community. As one of a series of strategic moves, the effort should help bolster ARM as a platform for high performance computing.
In talking with HPC users at SC15 following the announcement of the OpenHPC project, I consistently heard that while they valued having a common open source framework covering a baseline set of HPC codes, they wanted to see more than one chip architecture represented. This is important when you consider that many HPC users are focused on getting to exascale computing for future supercomputer deployments. They need the flexibility of shifting to alternative architectures for their next deployment if it offers better energy-efficiency, density, performance, and scalability for their compute needs. However, this will only happen if a strong supporting HPC software ecosystem for that architecture is in place. Efforts were already underway from ARM to build up our HPC software ecosystem and we immediately saw that OpenHPC aligned well with those efforts. In June, we were officially announced as a founding member of OpenHPC and less than six months later, I’m pleased to announce that ARMv8-A will be the first alternative architecture with OpenHPC support.
The initial baseline release of OpenHPC for ARMv8-A will be available as part of the forthcoming OpenHPC v1.2 release at SC16. This is yet another milestone that levels the playing field for the ARM server ecosystem and will accelerate choice within the HPC community.
Cepulis goes on to say that is pursuing an open source strategy with partners to support the HPC community and continues to make great progress in its commercial HPC tool set. You can learn more at arm.com/hpc.
