Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
119 lines (83 loc) · 4.18 KB

Changelog.md

File metadata and controls

119 lines (83 loc) · 4.18 KB
Raw

Mechanic short changelog

2.3

Task management

  • Task snapshots - possibility to save current state of the task to the checkpoint buffer, and continue task processing (instead of storing the task final state)
  • ICE check. If the master node founds mechanic.ice file, it will abort the run (the current checkpoint state will be stored in the master file)

Configuration

  • Runtime configuration is stored as attributes attached to the task board. No more /Config dataset
  • The setup object has been removed from the API. Runtime configuration may be now modified per task pool through the MReadOption and MWriteOption macros
  • New core configuration options: x/y/z-axis element, x/y/z-label, as well as common module-like options such as: debug, dense etc.

Loadable runtime mode support

  • Now, the user may create additional library with the runtime mode (this is an advanced case of using the Mechanic, and we suggest to look into the core taskfarm mode). The library prefix is libmechanic_mode_${LIBRARY} and is should contain Master() and Worker() functions. No core fallback is provided. This fully fits the original idea of the Mechanic. You can switch to different runtime mode with --mode option.

Pool stages

  • Now, inside a pool the pool stages are possible, i.e. to split the cpu-expensive part of computation (some genetic algorithms may require such things). The pool stages are created with POOL_STAGE return code. The pool stages may also be reset with POOL_STAGE_RESET code.

Pool reset and changing the number of tasks to compute

  • The BoardPrepare() hook allows to change the number of tasks to compute during the pool reset loop. This will reduce the CPU overhead for applications that do not require computing all tasks at each reset.

Hooks

  • New hooks: Send() and Receive(), that are invoked after MPI_Send and MPI_Receive respectively, on each node

Other

  • Support for numeric and string attributes
  • Initial work for python postprocessing pipeline
  • Mechanic now ships with the RNGS random number library
  • Full unit test coverage
  • Documentation updates
  • Bug fixes

2.2

The most important change is the new memory handler. It allows using different datatypes and dimensionality for datasets. The Module API had to be changed to reflect core changes. See the examples for the in-depth usage of the new Module API.

Memory

  • Contiguous memory allocation for different datatypes and dimensionality
  • Generic type allocation macros MAllocate* and corresponding functions Allocate* (up to rank 4)

Datasets and datatypes

  • Support for all basic (native) datatypes
  • Multidimensional datasets (min. rank 2 up to max rank H5S_MAX_RANK)

Attributes

  • HDF5 attributes fully handled through the Storage API

Task board

  • Task board is now 3D. The fourth dimension is preserved for additional task information

Config API

  • Libreadconfig is now shipped with the core and has been moved to Config API

Hooks

  • New advanced hooks: NodePrepare(), NodeProcess(), LoopPrepare() and LoopProcess()
  • New public functions for reading and writing data: ReadData(), WriteData(), ReadAttr(), WriteAttr()
  • Corresponding generic-type macros for reading and writing data: MReadData(), MWriteData(), MReadAttr(), MWriteAttr()

Other

  • Build system improvements
  • Several bug fixes and minor improvements
  • Documentation updates and new examples (i.e. fortran)
  • Examples are installed in share/mechanic/examples

2.1

  • The MPI Blocking communication mode (--blocking option)
  • New hooks: DatasetPrepare() and DatasetProcess(), which may be used for advanced stuff on HDF5 datasets (such as attributes)
  • New options: xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax, xorigin, yorigin, common for many scientific modules
  • Better memory management and smaller memory footprint

2.0

  • Pool based simulations
  • MPI Nonblocking communication mode
  • Support for different datasets (and memory banks)
  • Support for module configuration (with command line)
  • Support for different storage types (i.e. for further postprocessing in Gnuplot, Matplotlib etc.)