Libraries

This is a list of the most relevant numerical libraries  on the IBM supercomputer.

Libraries that don't come directly from IBM are usually provided as a module. The output of the command module avail (see the section libs) provides an up-to-date list of availbale libraries and versions. Some additional libraries can also be found at /usr/local/lib or /afs/ipp/@sys/lib. Please note, that different from the former Power4 and Power5 configuration, AFS is not available on the Power6 compute nodes. AFS is only available on the Power6 login node, so that libraries from any AFS tree can only be linked statically.

ESSL

"Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library", the main workhorse provided by IBM for scientific computing. Use the flag -lessl for linking your programs. Please have a close look at the non-obvious interrelations between compiler flags (-q64) and IBM's MPI, SMP, ESSL, pESSL and BLACS libraries!

pESSL

Parallel ESSL is a version of ESSL that can run on several processors. It includes a subset of the ScaLAPACK package. Use the flag -lpessl for linking your programs. Please have a close look at the non-obvious interrelations between compiler flags (-q64) and IBM's MPI, SMP, ESSL, pESSL and BLACS libraries!

LAPACK

The "Linear Algebra PACKage" offers routines for solving a system of linear equations, or calculating the eigenvalues of matrices. (See the overview of the LAPACK Project.)
LAPACK on Power6 was compiled with ESSL support.
See module avail and module help lapack for available versions, documentation of compiler options employed used and detailed usage instructions.

ScaLAPACK

ScaLAPACK includes routines for the solution of dense, band, and tridiagonal linear systems of equations, condition estimation and iterative refinement, for LU and Cholesky factorization, matrix inversion, full-rank linear least squares problems, orthogonal and generalized orthogonal factorizations, orthogonal transformation routines, reductions to upper Hessenberg, bidiagonal and tridiagonal form, reduction of a symmetric-definite/ Hermitian-definite generalized eigenproblem to standard form, the symmetric/Hermitian, generalized symmetric/Hermitian, the nonsymmetric eigenproblem, and the singular value decomposition. (See the overview of the ScaLAPACK Project.)
ScaLAPACK on Power6 was compiled with ESSL support.
See module avail and module help scalapack for available versions , documentation of compiler options employed used and detailed usage instructions.

 

NAG

Collection of numerical algortithms for HPC. Different sequential versions of the NAG Fortran77 and Fortran90 library for various compilers are available, and since February 2011, also an SMP parallel version as a trial for one year. All available as module.

WSMP

Watson Sparse Matrix Package - A High-Performance Shared- and Distributed-Memory Parallel Sparse Linear Equation Solver. Available as a module.

MASS

Mathematical Acceleration Subsystem - fast mathematical intrinsic functions (at the expense of some accuracy). The library is located at /usr/lib. Just use -lmass to use this library.

 

FFTW

The "Fastest Fourier transform in the West". FFTW2 and FFTW3 are available as a module.

PETSc

A suite of data structures and routines for the scalable (MPI parallel) solution of scientific applications modeled by partial differential equations. Available as a module.

SLEPc

Library for the solution of large scale sparse eigenvalue problems on parallel computers. Available as a module.

Further references

GAMS

Guide to available free mathematical software at NIST with search possibility by problem

NHSE

National HPCC Software Exchange

http://www.netlib.org/utk/people/JackDongarra/la-sw.html

Jack Dongarra's overview of free Linear Algebra (LA) software

Iterative Linear System Solver Packages

Overview of packages, described by Victor Eijkhout.

Dense Linear Algebra / Fast Summation / Communication Algorithms

Journal publications