Runtime Systems

Sonia Sachs held the first Runtime Systems Summit on April 9, 2014. The contents of the meeting are below, revised with updates by the attendees.

Exascale Runtime Systems Summit Plan and Outcomes

Summit Goals

Discuss current challenges in Exascale runtime systems: we would like to create an articulation of these challenges that is commonly accepted by the community. We want to discuss how to leverage recent reports and community input on challenges that we face in the area of runtime systems to create a complete set of challenges and discuss the current state-of-the-art to deal with them. Develop a set of questions that must be answered in this area. An initial set of questions is included in this document. Generate a roadmap for generating a unified runtime systems architecture for Exascale systems that has broad community acceptance and that leverages investments: Not a unified runtime software for Exascale To be clear: this summit is not an opportunity for participants to promote their current research agenda, but to take a fresh look into the future needs for Exascale runtime systems. The goal for this summit is to develop a unified runtime architecture with common components, not a single unified runtime software.

Summit rule: Participants should not promote their current research agenda

• Generate a roadmap for achieving a unified runtime systems architecture for Exascale systems
  • Reach consensus on the top six challenges and solutions for them.
  • Agree on a comprehensive set of questions that must be answered in order to achieve such architecture
  • Current known answers to posed questions
• Generate a roadmap for a research program on runtime systems
  • Consistent with achieving a unified runtime systems architecture
  • Discuss future workshop
• Prepare for writing a report

Plan to create the Unified Runtime Systems Architecture Roadmap

We need to leverage current investments in runtime systems: OCR, HPX, ARTS, SEEC, GVR runtime and runtimes to support advance/extended MPI and Global Arrays

• Agree on top six (6) challenges and solutions (1 hour)
  • Strawman set of challenges: slide 3
• For each challenge: discuss current state-of-the-art and how is challenge addressed in existing runtime systems to be leveraged? (1-2 hours)
• Agree on a set of top questions to be answered (1 hours)
  • Strawman set of questions: slide 4
• For each question: discuss currently known answers and how existing runtime systems answer it? (1-2 hours)
• Vision (1-2 hours)
  • what are major components?
  • programming interfaces and interfaces to the OS
  • How do we measure success