OSC hosts 12th meeting of the MVAPICH Users Group

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Aug 19, 2024) — 

Researchers, developers, system administrators, engineers and students who share an interest in the MVAPICH open-source library for high performance computing (HPC) are gathering at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) Monday, Aug. 19, through Wednesday, Aug. 21, for the 12th meeting of the MVAPICH Users Group (MUG). 

The Network-Based Computing Research Group led by Dhabaleswar K. “DK” Panda, a professor of computer science at The Ohio State University, developed and maintains the popular HPC system software package.  

“We started this user group conference so that people can share their experiences and learn what is new,” Panda said. “It has been very fruitful for the HPC community over the last 11 years. In this year’s conference, we will highlight many new features of the MVAPICH-Plus libraries to deliver high-performance and scalable communication support on modern heterogeneous clusters for HPC, AI, big data and data science.”  

Panda is a longtime OSC client and partners closely with the Center’s staff on several research initiatives, including the Intelligent Cyberinfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment (ICICLE) project. OSC is the host and a co-sponsor of this year’s MUG conference.  

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Participants in the 2022 MUG conference hosted by the Ohio Supercomputer Center.

“OSC has been a longtime supporter of the MUG conference, as it brings together HPC experts from around the world to discuss the latest systems, communication middleware and applications in a friendly environment,” said Karen Tomko, director of research software applications at OSC. “Attendees range from new student researchers, such as our eight National Science Foundation (NSF) supported travel awardees, to seasoned HPC experts such as our two keynote speakers. Everyone has an opportunity to interact, ask questions and learn from each other to move HPC technologies forward.” 

Keynote speakers at the event are Sadaf Alam of the University of Bristol and Dan Stanzione of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), who will both address innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) resources. Alam will speak about a new AI research resource that has been deployed for academic and research communities in the United Kingdom. Stanzione’s talk will include a discussion of upcoming developments in computing research infrastructure to support future big data/AI/HPC platforms.   

The three-day conference features tutorials and talks by experts from NVIDIA, Cornelis Networks, X-ScaleSolutions, Ohio State, University of Oregon, ParaTools, Idaho National Laboratory, Microsoft DeepSpeed, AMD, CDAC, Microsoft Azure, KAUST, ETRI, San Diego Supercomputer Center, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NSF and University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  

A poster session will highlight the research of students from Ohio State, Rutgers University, Northeastern University, George Mason University, University of California San Diego, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, San Diego State University and Florida State University.  

Participants have the opportunity to tour OSC’s data center at the State of Ohio Computer Center. All of OSC’s HPC clusters are equipped with the MVAPICH library.  

Sponsors of this year’s event are Cornelis Networks, NSF, NVIDIA, OSC, Ohio State, ParaTools and X-ScaleSolutions.  

The MVAPICH software is used by more than 3,400 organizations in 92 countries worldwide, and as of August 2024, more than 1.8 million downloads have occurred from the project's site. The software also is distributed by many vendors as part of their software distributions and powers several supercomputers in the TOP500 list of global supercomputing systems.  

Visit the MUG conference website for more details about this year’s program.  

The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) addresses the rising computational demands of academic and industrial research communities by providing a robust shared infrastructure and proven expertise in advanced modeling, simulation and analysis. OSC empowers scientists with the services essential to making extraordinary discoveries and innovations, partners with businesses and industry to leverage computational science as a competitive force in the global knowledge economy and leads efforts to equip the workforce with the key technology skills required for 21st century jobs.