Integrating MPI with Docker for HPC

Abstract

Container technology has the potential to considerably simplify the management of the software stack of High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters. However, poor integration with established HPC technologies is still preventing users and administrators to reap the benefits of containers. Message Passing Interface (MPI) is a pervasive technology used to run scientific software, often written in Fortran and C/C++, that presents challenges for effective integration with containers. This work shows how an existing MPI implementation can be extended to improve this integration.