TY - GEN
T1 - Middleware in modern high performance computing system architectures
AU - Engelmann, Christian
AU - Ong, Hong
AU - Scott, Stephen L.
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - A recent trend in modern high performance computing (HPC) system architectures employs "lean" compute nodes running a lightweight operating system (OS). Certain parts of the OS as well as other system software services are moved to service nodes in order to increase performance and scalability. This paper examines the impact of this HPC system architecture trend on HPC "middleware" software solutions, which traditionally equip HPC systems with advanced features, such as parallel and distributed programming models, appropriate system resource management mechanisms, remote application steering and user interaction techniques. Since the approach of keeping the compute node software stack small and simple is orthogonal to the middleware concept of adding missing OS features between OS and application, the role and architecture of middleware in modern HPC systems needs to be revisited. The result is a paradigm shift in HPC middleware design, where single middleware services are moved to service nodes, while runtime environments (RTEs) continue to reside on compute nodes.
AB - A recent trend in modern high performance computing (HPC) system architectures employs "lean" compute nodes running a lightweight operating system (OS). Certain parts of the OS as well as other system software services are moved to service nodes in order to increase performance and scalability. This paper examines the impact of this HPC system architecture trend on HPC "middleware" software solutions, which traditionally equip HPC systems with advanced features, such as parallel and distributed programming models, appropriate system resource management mechanisms, remote application steering and user interaction techniques. Since the approach of keeping the compute node software stack small and simple is orthogonal to the middleware concept of adding missing OS features between OS and application, the role and architecture of middleware in modern HPC systems needs to be revisited. The result is a paradigm shift in HPC middleware design, where single middleware services are moved to service nodes, while runtime environments (RTEs) continue to reside on compute nodes.
KW - High performance computing
KW - Lean compute node
KW - Lightweight operating system
KW - Middleware
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=38049153567&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-540-72586-2_111
DO - 10.1007/978-3-540-72586-2_111
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:38049153567
SN - 9783540725855
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 784
EP - 791
BT - Computational Science - ICCS 2007 - 7th International Conference, Proceedings
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - 7th International Conference on Computational Science, ICCS 2007
Y2 - 27 May 2007 through 30 May 2007
ER -