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MPICH

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MPICH
NameMPICH
DeveloperArgonne National Laboratory
Released0 1992
Latest release version4.2.1
Latest release date16 July 2024
Operating systemCross-platform
GenreMessage passing
LicenseBSD
Websitehttps://www.mpich.org

MPICH. It is a high-performance, widely portable implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard, developed primarily at Argonne National Laboratory. As one of the most influential and foundational MPI implementations, it serves as the basis for numerous other systems and is used extensively in academic research and large-scale scientific computing. The library enables efficient communication between processes in parallel applications, forming a critical software layer for modern supercomputers and high-performance computing clusters.

Overview

MPICH provides a complete implementation of the MPI standard, supporting the core library specifications for both MPI-1 and MPI-2 functionality. It is designed as a portable, high-performance foundation that can be adapted to various network hardware and system architectures. The software is a key enabling technology for parallel applications in fields such as computational fluid dynamics, climate modeling, and molecular dynamics. Its development is closely associated with the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory and has received funding from the United States Department of Energy.

History and development

The project originated in the early 1990s, with its first release in 1992, as a collaborative effort to create a portable MPI implementation following the standardization efforts of the MPI Forum. Key early contributors included researchers like William Gropp and Ewing Lusk. A major milestone was the release of MPICH2, which represented a significant architectural redesign to improve modularity and performance. The project has been sustained through continuous grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation and has evolved through close collaboration with institutions such as the University of Chicago and Microsoft Research.

Architecture and features

The architecture of MPICH is structured around a modular design known as the Abstract Device Interface (ADI), which separates the high-level MPI protocol logic from low-level communication device details. This design allows for portability across diverse networks, including InfiniBand, Omni-Path Architecture, and Ethernet. Its feature set includes full support for one-sided communication, dynamic process management, and efficient collective operations. The implementation also provides sophisticated tools for performance analysis and debugging, integrating with projects like the TAU (software) performance system.

Implementation and usage

Implementing MPICH typically involves configuring the software for a specific network hardware and then compiling it for the target system, which may run an operating system like Linux or IBM AIX. It is a core component of many large-scale HPC systems, including former #1 ranked supercomputers like IBM Blue Gene. The software is also the foundation for several derivative and vendor-specific MPI implementations, such as Intel MPI Library and Cray MPICH. Common usage involves linking scientific applications written in Fortran or C++ with the library to enable parallel execution across thousands of processors.

Performance and portability

A primary design goal is to deliver high performance across a vast range of systems, from commodity Linux clusters to the world's largest supercomputers. Its performance is achieved through optimized algorithms for point-to-point and collective communications, and through tight integration with high-speed network interfaces. The codebase is rigorously tested on platforms from major vendors like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, and NVIDIA. This portability has made it a *de facto* reference implementation used for validating new MPI standard features and for benchmarking novel network architectures.

MPICH is closely related to several other major MPI implementations and software ecosystems. The most direct derivative is MVAPICH, developed at The Ohio State University, which is optimized for InfiniBand and Ethernet. Another significant alternative is Open MPI, a project that combined technologies from several earlier implementations including FT-MPI and LA-MPI. Other notable parallel communication libraries include Platform MPI and Microsoft MPI. The development community often interacts with related tools for parallel programming, such as the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) system and the Global Arrays programming model.

Category:Message Passing Interface Category:Parallel computing Category:Argonne National Laboratory Category:Free science software Category:Software using the BSD license