What’s new for High Performance Computing in SLES 15 Service Pack 2

SUSE Linux Enterprise for High Performance Computing (SLE HPC) 15 Service Pack 2 has a lot of new capabilities for HPC on-premises and in the Cloud.

SUSE uses a “Refresh” and “Consolidation” approach to Service Pack releases: Every “Even” release (e.g., SP0, SP2, …) is a “Refresh” release that will include the latest stable Linux kernel. For SLES 15 SP2, we are using the 5.3 Linux kernel as the base with backports from later kernels as needed. Updating to a new kernel every two releases allows SUSE to provide our customers with the Linux features and enhancements.

SUSE Linux Enterprise for HPC

When we introduced the HPC Module to SUSE Linux early in 2017, we laid out a strategy to make High Performance Computing adoption easier by providing a several fully supported HPC packages to our SUSE Linux customers.

These packages have been built and tested by SUSE and are provided at no additional cost with the SUSE Linux support subscription.

SUSE provides the HPC Module for customers using the X86-64 and Arm hardware platform. Except for a few hardware specific packages, all the packages are supported on both platforms. If you haven’t tried the HPC module yet, here are the  instructions on how to access it. The HPC Module is also included in HPC images available on Clouds like Microsoft Azure.

HPC Module updates

• Added adios1.13.1
• boost to 1.71.0
• conman to version 0.3.0
• cpuid to version 20180519
• fftw3 to version 3.3.8
• genders to version 1.27.3
• gsl to version 2.6
• hdf5 to version 1.10.5
• hwloc to version 2.1.0
• hypre to version 2.18.2
• imb to version 2019.3
• luafilesystem to version 1.7.0
• lua-lmod to version 8.2.5
• lua-luaposix to version 34.1.1
• memkind to version 1.9.0
• mpich to 3.3.2
• mvapich2 to version 2.3.3
• mumps to version 5.2.1
• netcdf to version 4.7.3
• netcdf-cxx4 to version 4.3.1
• netcdf-fortran to 4.5.2
• python-numpy to version 1.17.3
• python-scipy to version 1.3.3
• openblas to 0.3.7
• Added openmpi3 3.1.4
• papi to version 5.7.0
• petsc to version 3.12.2
• Added PMIx version 3.1.5
• scalapack to 2.1
• scotch to version 6.0.9
• slurm to 20.0.2
• trilinos to version 12.14.1

HPC relevant base system packages

• libfabric 1.8 to enable AWS
• rdma-core 24.0 to enable AWS

PackageHub

PackageHub is a SUSE curated repository for community supported, open-source packages. A number of AI/ML packages were added to PackageHub for SP2.  These packages can be installed using zypper. Tips for using PackageHub.

• armnn 20.02
• caffe  1.0
• charliecloud 0.15
• clustershell 1.8.2
• numpy 1.17.3
• pytorch
• robinhood 3.1.5
• singularity 3.5.2
• tensorflow2 2.1.0
• theano 1.0.4
• warewolf 3.8.1

New HPC and ML/AI Systems

SLE HPC 15 SP2 enabled a number of servers for HPC and AI/ML workloads including:

• NVIDIA TegraX1
• NVIDIA TegraX2
• Fujitsu FX700 – (also SUSE “YES” certified)
• AWS Graviton2 instances in AWS Cloud

Other HPC changes

• Add Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) driver to enable HPC on AWS
• Add the Live Patching Extension to the SLE-HPC Product
• Improve clustduct cluster distribution tool
• Remove unneeded package ‘ohpc’

Summary

The HPC ecosystem continues to expand and transform to include simulation, data analytics, and machine learning. SUSE HPC will continue to grow with the needs of our customers.

Learn more about SLES 15 SP2:

• SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 Service Pack 2 is Generally Available
• What’s new in SUSE Linux Enterprise for Arm 15 SP2
• Artificial Intelligence – will 2020 be the year the momentum stalls?