On Nov 14, 2013, at 12:42 PM, Joshua Ladd <josh...@mellanox.com> wrote:

> We are happy to provide access to our set of small test clusters and 
> engineering resources, but, honestly, Nathan/LANL guys probably have better 
> access to a big IB system.
>  
> I’m sure your boss could care less, but this is not Intel’s code base. Sorry 
> to be so blunt about it, Ralph

I agree - nobody said it was. However, this community works by committee. In 
this case, the OOB update was discussed for more than a year, the RFC was out 
for nearly 6 months, the branch was made available for testing and review for 
nearly 3 months, and it sat in the trunk for another 3+ months before moving to 
the 1.7 branch.

At some point, the IB users in this community have to take responsibility for 
testing and helping debug their code areas, not just letting them bitrot for 
months and then saying "hey, something broke - somebody fix it".

As I said, I'm happy to help - but ultimately, IB support is the responsibility 
of the IB members of this community...and I'm not one of them.


> . We’ve expended an enormous amount of effort *trying* to make OSHMEM 
> something that works for the community and not just Mellanox customers. 
> Believe me, we would rather focus our efforts elsewhere too.   
>  
> Josh
>  
> From: devel [mailto:devel-boun...@open-mpi.org] On Behalf Of Ralph Castain
> Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 3:32 PM
> To: Open MPI Developers
> Cc: Yiftah Shahar; Gilad Shainer
> Subject: Re: [OMPI devel] [EXTERNAL] Re: [OMPI svn-full] svn:open-mpi r29703 
> - in trunk: contrib/platform/iu/odin ompi/mca/btl/openib 
> ompi/mca/btl/openib/connect
>  
>  
> On Nov 14, 2013, at 12:21 PM, Barrett, Brian W <bwba...@sandia.gov> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 11/14/13 1:13 PM, "Joshua Ladd" <josh...@mellanox.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Let me try to summarize my understanding of the situation:
> 
> 1. Ralph made the OOB asynchronous.
> 
> 2. OOB cpcs don't work as a result of 1, and are thereby "deprecated",
> meaning: won't fix.
> 
> 3. Pasha moved the openib/connect to common/ofacm but excluded the rdmacm
> in that move.  Never changed openib to use ofacm/common.
> 
> 4. UDCM is "functional" in the trunk, still sitting in openib/connect.
> But no one is entirely sure if it really works which is why it was
> disabled in 1.7. Nathan - is there a design doc you can share on this
> beyond the comments in the code?
> 
> 5. In order to satisfy the "grand plan":
>                 a. UDCM still needs to be moved to common/ofacm.
>               b. OpenIB still needs to be changed to use common/ofacm.
>               c.  RDMACM still needs to migrate to common/ofacm.
>               d. XRC support needs to be added to UDCM and put into
> common/ofacm.
> 
> 6. The "grand plan" being:  move the BTLs into Opal - hence the need to
> scuttle the OOB cpcs thereby justifying the deprecation and not fixing
> cpcs after #1.
> 
> So, that's a quick roundup of how we ended up here (as I understand it.)
> What needs to be done is:
> 
> That's my understanding as well.
> 
> 
> 1. Somebody needs to certify/review/ that what Nathan has done is sound.
> From my perspective, this is a BIG change and needs a comprehensive
> architecture review. We've been using it in the trunk, and we've been
> testing it under MTT for some time - but have not deployed or tested at
> large-scale out in the field. Would be nice to see something on paper in
> terms of a design doc.
> 
> 2. Somebody then needs to move UDCM into common/ofacm.
> 
> 3. Somebody needs to change openib to use common/ofacm cpcs instead of
> openib/connect cpcs.
> 
> 4. Somebody needs to move RDMACM into common/ofacm and make sure RoCEE
> works.
> 
> 5. Somebody needs to add XRC support to UDCM - whatever that might mean.
> Given Nathan added UDCM back in 2011 and nobody is really sure it's ready
> for prime-time, and given Pasha's comments regarding the difference in
> state machine requirements  between the two connection schemes, this
> doesn't seem like a trivial task.
> 
> Given Nathan's comments a second ago about ORNL not supporting the IB
> Offload component, it barely makes sense to keep common/ofacm. And it
> sounds like the two cpcs presently contained therein are now unusable.
> 
> All of this work is a result of the Grand Plan to move the BTLs into the
> Opal layer - which I have no idea what the motive is (I was not involved
> with OMPI when this was decided or debated.)
> 
> Basically, without these five changes OpenIB is dead in 1.7.4 and beyond
> for RC, XRC, and RoCEE. These are blockers to 1.7.4 and I don't believe
> that the onus falls squarely on Mellanox to fix these. These were
> community decisions and, as such, it must be a community effort to
> resolve. We are happy to lend a hand, but we are not fixing all of this
> mess.
> 
> I think that the 5 steps above sound correct and I agree that 1) this
> means 1.7.4 is on hold until we fix this and 2) that Mellanox shouldn't be
> the only one to fix this for 1.7.4, given the amount of work involved.
> 
> Ralph, what, specifically, broke about the oob/xoob cpc mechanisms by
> making the oob asynchronous?
>  
> Hard for me to say as I don't really have access to an IB machine any more. 
> Odin is my sole reference point, and someone has had that fully locked up for 
> more than a week (and I can't complain as I am totally a guest there). Even 
> then, I can only test on a few nodes.
>  
> I have no objection to helping, but we need someone who cares about IB and 
> has access to such a machine to take the lead. Otherwise, we're just spinning 
> our wheels.
>  
> As for the work issue: note that this has been "under development" now for 
> more than a year. We've talked at length about how "somebody" needs to fix 
> the openib/ofacm issue, but everyone keeps pushing it down the road as "not 
> mine". Like I said, I can help - but (a) my boss couldn't care less about 
> this issue, and (b) I have no way to test the results.
>  
>  
> 
> 
>  That is, 1-5 are a huge amount of work; have
> we done the analysis to say that updating the oob / xoob cpc to work with
> the new oob is actually more work than doing 1-5?  Obviously, there's long
> term plans that make oob/xoob problematic.  But those aren't 1.7 / 1.8
> plans.  Unfortunately, the cpcs were always out of my area of interest, so
> I'm flying a bit more blind than I'd like here.
> 
> Brian
> 
> --
>  Brian W. Barrett
>  Scalable System Software Group
>  Sandia National Laboratories
> 
> 
> 
> 
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