Section: New Software and Platforms

NetLoc

Network Locality

Keywords: Topology - Locality - Distributed networks - HPC - Parallel computing - MPI communication

Functional Description: netloc (Network Locality) is a library that extends hwloc to network topology information by assembling hwloc knowledge of server internals within graphs of inter-node fabrics such as Infiniband, Intel OmniPath or Cray networks.

Netloc builds a software representation of the entire cluster so as to help applications properly place their tasks on the nodes. It may also help communication libraries optimize their strategies according to the wires and switches.

Netloc targets the same challenges as hwloc but focuses on a wider spectrum by enabling cluster-wide solutions such as process placement. It interoperates with the Scotch graph partitioner to do so.

Netloc is distributed within hwloc releases starting with hwloc 2.0.

• Participants: Brice Goglin, Clement Foyer and Cyril Bordage

• Contact: Brice Goglin

• Publications: netloc: Towards a Comprehensive View of the HPC System Topology - Netloc: a Tool for Topology-Aware Process Mapping

• URL: http://www.open-mpi.org/projects/netloc/