Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning

Asa Rentschler; Nicholas Hagerty; Elijah Maccarthy; Edwin Fernando Posada Correa

doi:10.1145/3757348.3757362

Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning

System Acceptance and User Environment

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

Abstract

The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a long history of deploying ground-breaking leadership-class supercomputers for the U.S. Department of Energy. The latest in this line of supercomputers is Frontier, the first supercomputer to break the exascale barrier (10¹⁸ floating-point operations per second) on the TOP500 list. Frontier serves a wide array of scientific domains, from traditional simulation-based workloads to newer AI and Machine Learning workloads. To best serve the NCCS user community, NCCS uses Spack to deploy a comprehensive software stack of scientific software packages, providing straightforward access to these packages through Lmod Environment Modules. Maintaining a large software stack while also including multiple new compiler releases each year is a very time-consuming task. Additionally, it is not straightforward to provide a software stack alongside existing vendor-provided software such as the HPE/Cray Programming Environment (CPE), and existing CPE, Spack, and Lmod integration does not allow for multiple versions of GPU libraries such as AMD's ROCm to be used. To address these challenges and shortcomings, NCCS has developed the NCCS Software Provisioning tool (NSP)¹, a tool for deploying and monitoring software stacks on HPC systems. NSP allows NCCS to quickly and effectively provision software stacks from the ground up using template-driven recipes and configuration files. NSP is successfully deployed on Frontier and several other NCCS clusters, enabling the NCCS software team to quickly deploy software stacks for newly-released compilers, expand current software offerings, better support GPU-based software, and monitor Lmod module usage to identify unused software packages that can be removed from the software stack. In this work, we discuss the shortcomings of the previous CPE, Spack, and Lmod usage at NCCS, provide further details on the implementation and structure of NSP, then discuss the benefits that NSP provides.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference
Editors	Ashley Barker, Bilel Hadri, Colleen Bertoni, Nick Hagerty, Timothy W. Robinson
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages	127-134
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Electronic)	9798400713279
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3757348.3757362
State	Published - Nov 11 2025
Event	Cray User Group, CUG 2025 - Jersey City, United States Duration: May 4 2025 → May 8 2025

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference

Conference

Conference	Cray User Group, CUG 2025
Country/Territory	United States
City	Jersey City
Period	05/4/25 → 05/8/25

Funding

This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.

Keywords

Configuration as code
High-Performance Computing
Software deployments
Spack

Access to Document

10.1145/3757348.3757362

Cite this

Rentschler, A., Hagerty, N., Maccarthy, E., & Posada Correa, E. F. (2025). Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning. In A. Barker, B. Hadri, C. Bertoni, N. Hagerty, & T. W. Robinson (Eds.), Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference (pp. 127-134). (Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference). Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/3757348.3757362

Rentschler, Asa ; Hagerty, Nicholas ; Maccarthy, Elijah et al. / Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning. Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference. editor / Ashley Barker ; Bilel Hadri ; Colleen Bertoni ; Nick Hagerty ; Timothy W. Robinson. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2025. pp. 127-134 (Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference).

@inproceedings{da6c922c023c483d9d29dc8db8019ada,

title = "Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning",

abstract = "The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a long history of deploying ground-breaking leadership-class supercomputers for the U.S. Department of Energy. The latest in this line of supercomputers is Frontier, the first supercomputer to break the exascale barrier (1018 floating-point operations per second) on the TOP500 list. Frontier serves a wide array of scientific domains, from traditional simulation-based workloads to newer AI and Machine Learning workloads. To best serve the NCCS user community, NCCS uses Spack to deploy a comprehensive software stack of scientific software packages, providing straightforward access to these packages through Lmod Environment Modules. Maintaining a large software stack while also including multiple new compiler releases each year is a very time-consuming task. Additionally, it is not straightforward to provide a software stack alongside existing vendor-provided software such as the HPE/Cray Programming Environment (CPE), and existing CPE, Spack, and Lmod integration does not allow for multiple versions of GPU libraries such as AMD's ROCm to be used. To address these challenges and shortcomings, NCCS has developed the NCCS Software Provisioning tool (NSP)1, a tool for deploying and monitoring software stacks on HPC systems. NSP allows NCCS to quickly and effectively provision software stacks from the ground up using template-driven recipes and configuration files. NSP is successfully deployed on Frontier and several other NCCS clusters, enabling the NCCS software team to quickly deploy software stacks for newly-released compilers, expand current software offerings, better support GPU-based software, and monitor Lmod module usage to identify unused software packages that can be removed from the software stack. In this work, we discuss the shortcomings of the previous CPE, Spack, and Lmod usage at NCCS, provide further details on the implementation and structure of NSP, then discuss the benefits that NSP provides.",

keywords = "Configuration as code, High-Performance Computing, Software deployments, Spack",

author = "Asa Rentschler and Nicholas Hagerty and Elijah Maccarthy and \{Posada Correa\}, \{Edwin Fernando\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).; Cray User Group, CUG 2025 ; Conference date: 04-05-2025 Through 08-05-2025",

year = "2025",

month = nov,

day = "11",

doi = "10.1145/3757348.3757362",

language = "English",

series = "Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery, Inc",

pages = "127--134",

editor = "Ashley Barker and Bilel Hadri and Colleen Bertoni and Nick Hagerty and Robinson, \{Timothy W.\}",

booktitle = "Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference",

}

Rentschler, A , Hagerty, N , Maccarthy, E & Posada Correa, EF 2025, Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning. in A Barker, B Hadri, C Bertoni, N Hagerty & TW Robinson (eds), Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference. Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, pp. 127-134, Cray User Group, CUG 2025, Jersey City, United States, 05/4/25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3757348.3757362

Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning. / Rentschler, Asa ; Hagerty, Nicholas ; Maccarthy, Elijah et al.
Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference. ed. / Ashley Barker; Bilel Hadri; Colleen Bertoni; Nick Hagerty; Timothy W. Robinson. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2025. p. 127-134 (Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning

AU - Rentschler, Asa

AU - Hagerty, Nicholas

AU - Maccarthy, Elijah

AU - Posada Correa, Edwin Fernando

PY - 2025/11/11

Y1 - 2025/11/11

N2 - The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a long history of deploying ground-breaking leadership-class supercomputers for the U.S. Department of Energy. The latest in this line of supercomputers is Frontier, the first supercomputer to break the exascale barrier (1018 floating-point operations per second) on the TOP500 list. Frontier serves a wide array of scientific domains, from traditional simulation-based workloads to newer AI and Machine Learning workloads. To best serve the NCCS user community, NCCS uses Spack to deploy a comprehensive software stack of scientific software packages, providing straightforward access to these packages through Lmod Environment Modules. Maintaining a large software stack while also including multiple new compiler releases each year is a very time-consuming task. Additionally, it is not straightforward to provide a software stack alongside existing vendor-provided software such as the HPE/Cray Programming Environment (CPE), and existing CPE, Spack, and Lmod integration does not allow for multiple versions of GPU libraries such as AMD's ROCm to be used. To address these challenges and shortcomings, NCCS has developed the NCCS Software Provisioning tool (NSP)1, a tool for deploying and monitoring software stacks on HPC systems. NSP allows NCCS to quickly and effectively provision software stacks from the ground up using template-driven recipes and configuration files. NSP is successfully deployed on Frontier and several other NCCS clusters, enabling the NCCS software team to quickly deploy software stacks for newly-released compilers, expand current software offerings, better support GPU-based software, and monitor Lmod module usage to identify unused software packages that can be removed from the software stack. In this work, we discuss the shortcomings of the previous CPE, Spack, and Lmod usage at NCCS, provide further details on the implementation and structure of NSP, then discuss the benefits that NSP provides.

AB - The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a long history of deploying ground-breaking leadership-class supercomputers for the U.S. Department of Energy. The latest in this line of supercomputers is Frontier, the first supercomputer to break the exascale barrier (1018 floating-point operations per second) on the TOP500 list. Frontier serves a wide array of scientific domains, from traditional simulation-based workloads to newer AI and Machine Learning workloads. To best serve the NCCS user community, NCCS uses Spack to deploy a comprehensive software stack of scientific software packages, providing straightforward access to these packages through Lmod Environment Modules. Maintaining a large software stack while also including multiple new compiler releases each year is a very time-consuming task. Additionally, it is not straightforward to provide a software stack alongside existing vendor-provided software such as the HPE/Cray Programming Environment (CPE), and existing CPE, Spack, and Lmod integration does not allow for multiple versions of GPU libraries such as AMD's ROCm to be used. To address these challenges and shortcomings, NCCS has developed the NCCS Software Provisioning tool (NSP)1, a tool for deploying and monitoring software stacks on HPC systems. NSP allows NCCS to quickly and effectively provision software stacks from the ground up using template-driven recipes and configuration files. NSP is successfully deployed on Frontier and several other NCCS clusters, enabling the NCCS software team to quickly deploy software stacks for newly-released compilers, expand current software offerings, better support GPU-based software, and monitor Lmod module usage to identify unused software packages that can be removed from the software stack. In this work, we discuss the shortcomings of the previous CPE, Spack, and Lmod usage at NCCS, provide further details on the implementation and structure of NSP, then discuss the benefits that NSP provides.

KW - Configuration as code

KW - High-Performance Computing

KW - Software deployments

KW - Spack

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DO - 10.1145/3757348.3757362

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:105023282755

T3 - Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference

SP - 127

EP - 134

BT - Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference

A2 - Barker, Ashley

A2 - Hadri, Bilel

A2 - Bertoni, Colleen

A2 - Hagerty, Nick

A2 - Robinson, Timothy W.

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc

T2 - Cray User Group, CUG 2025

Y2 - 4 May 2025 through 8 May 2025

ER -

Rentschler A , Hagerty N , Maccarthy E , Posada Correa EF. Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning. In Barker A, Hadri B, Bertoni C, Hagerty N, Robinson TW, editors, Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. 2025. p. 127-134. (Proceedings of CUG 2025 - Cray User Group Conference). doi: 10.1145/3757348.3757362

Deploying and Tracking Software with NCCS Software Provisioning

Abstract

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Conference

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Keywords

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