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| Cray Linux Environment | |
|---|---|
| Name | Cray Linux Environment |
| Developer | Cray Inc. |
| Released | 2011 |
| Programming language | C, C++ |
| Operating system | Linux |
| Genre | High-performance computing |
| License | Proprietary |
Cray Linux Environment is a proprietary high-performance computing operating environment developed by Cray Inc. designed to run on supercomputer-class systems. It integrates a Linux distribution with cluster management, resource scheduling, and interconnect fabrics to support large-scale scientific applications and computational workloads. The environment targets workloads typical of national laboratories, research institutions, and commercial centers that deploy supercomputers for modeling, simulation, and data analysis.
Cray designed the environment to combine elements of enterprise SUSE and Red Hat Enterprise Linux ecosystems with bespoke components for supercomputing seen in systems from IBM and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The product aligns with architectures used by facilities such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and vendors like Dell Technologies and Fujitsu. It interoperates with middleware and libraries common in projects involving MPI, OpenMP, CUDA, OpenACC, and vendor-specific tools from NVIDIA and AMD to support codes developed by teams affiliated with institutions like Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and universities in the Association of American Universities.
The architecture blends a compute-node kernel, a service-node management layer, and an interconnect runtime supporting fabrics such as Cray Aries, Slingshot, and industry interconnects from Mellanox Technologies (part of NVIDIA). Compute nodes run a lightweight kernel derived from mainstream Linux kernel sources with optimizations similar to those applied by Red Hat and SUSE engineers. The environment includes resource managers and schedulers comparable to SLURM, Torque, and LoadLeveler, alongside libraries for I/O like Lustre and GPFS (also known as IBM Spectrum Scale). Compiler and toolchain support aligns with toolchains from GNU Project, Intel, and proprietary compilers used in collaborations with Cray Research and later HPE. System firmware and hardware abstraction integrate with platforms from Intel Corporation, AMD, and custom ASIC efforts influenced by research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Deployment workflows mirror practices used by large-scale installations at National Center for Supercomputing Applications, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, and regional supercomputing centers that coordinate with procurement partners such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell EMC. Installation commonly involves provisioning service nodes with management stacks derived from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or Red Hat Enterprise Linux images, configuring network fabrics and switch firmware from Arista Networks or Brocade Communications Systems, and initializing parallel file systems like Lustre overseen by teams from Oak Ridge National Laboratory or industrial integrators. Deployment automation uses orchestration concepts familiar to practitioners at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and enterprises that employ configuration management patterns from Ansible and Puppet (software).
Performance tuning leverages lessons from benchmark suites and initiatives such as the TOP500 list, the HPCG benchmark, and community codes maintained by consortia including INCITE and the DOE user facilities. The environment is optimized for low-latency messaging for MPI workloads seen in applications from NCAR, NOAA, and computational chemistry packages developed at Argonne National Laboratory. Scalability studies draw on methodologies used in exascale programs involving Exascale Computing Project collaborators and hardware vendors such as NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. I/O optimization integrates approaches demonstrated in projects with NERSC and storage research from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to balance throughput across thousands of compute nodes.
Management tools include provisioning, monitoring, and telemetry systems analogous to offerings from ganglia, Prometheus, and vendor solutions comparable to those used by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM. Administrators use job schedulers and accounting systems similar to SLURM and workflow managers familiar to teams at NERSC and XSEDE projects. Telemetry and debugging tie into software development ecosystems used by researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and visualization stacks compatible with tools from ParaView and VisIt.
Security and compliance practices for deployments reference frameworks and standards applied at national labs such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and agencies operating under directives from U.S. Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health. Hardening follows patterns propagated by NSA guidance, vulnerability management similar to processes at Red Hat and SUSE, and access control models used by computational research centers including Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. Compliance with export-control and data-handling policies is coordinated with institutional offices and procurement teams from partners like Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cray Inc. collaborators.
The environment evolved from prior Cray operating efforts and integration projects carried out by Cray Research engineers collaborating with organizations including Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. Throughout its development, contributions and influence came from ecosystem players such as SUSE, Red Hat, Intel Corporation, and academic partners at institutions like MIT, Stanford University, and University of California, Berkeley. Major procurement and deployment milestones occurred at centers including Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, reflecting adoption patterns similar to other HPC platforms tracked on the TOP500 list and discussed in venues such as the International Supercomputing Conference and workshops sponsored by the Exascale Computing Project.
Category:Supercomputing