Architectures
Officially supported platforms: AIX, IRIX, Sun/Solaris and (new) Intel/Solaris
- gcc except IRIX (native); will move to all-native (Objy and other commercial SW)
Changes coming or in progress:
- New ‘User supported platform’ category: Platform is provided for in the repository and scripts & makefiles. Porting and maintenance is not performed by the core infrastructure team but by a user group.
- HP has just been put in this category, with T. Ullrich/Yale supporting
- AIX will move to ‘user supported’
- Extremely unpopular platform, particularly among those in the porting frontline: idiosynchratic and difficult and expensive (in manpower) to support
- RCF is moving away from AIX; always lightly used and now overshadowed by Intel/Solaris
- Only two STAR institutions are AIX sites (Rice, MPI Munich)
- Ideal candidate for the ‘user supported’ category
- NT port is coming. Commodity platform with good development environment and, given visible trends, very probably an important long term role.
Ultimate goal: A sustainable support burden on platforms selected to make the best use of collaboration and RCF computing, human and financial resources.
- But portable code is an important objective in general; coding standards will take account of user platform implications (within reason, case by case) to preserve portability