structure
This structure member was originally used to specify the remote segment
for an RDMA operation. Since the new btl interface no longer uses
desriptors for RDMA this member no longer has a purpose. In addition
to removing these members the local segment information has been
renamed to des_segments/des_segment_count.
The old BTL interface provided support for RDMA through the use of
the btl_prepare_src and btl_prepare_dst functions. These functions were
expected to prepare as much of the user buffer as possible for the RDMA
operation and return a descriptor. The descriptor contained segment
information on the prepared region. The btl user could then pass the
RDMA segment information to a remote peer. Once the peer received that
information it then packed it into a similar descriptor on the other
side that could then be passed into a single btl_put or btl_get
operation.
Changes:
- Removed the btl_prepare_dst function. This reflects the fact that
RDMA operations no longer depend on "prepared" descriptors.
- Removed the btl_seg_size member. There is no need to btl's to
subclass the mca_btl_base_segment_t class anymore.
...
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WHAT: Open our low-level communication infrastructure by moving all necessary components (btl/rcache/allocator/mpool) down in OPAL
All the components required for inter-process communications are currently deeply integrated in the OMPI layer. Several groups/institutions have express interest in having a more generic communication infrastructure, without all the OMPI layer dependencies. This communication layer should be made available at a different software level, available to all layers in the Open MPI software stack. As an example, our ORTE layer could replace the current OOB and instead use the BTL directly, gaining access to more reactive network interfaces than TCP. Similarly, external software libraries could take advantage of our highly optimized AM (active message) communication layer for their own purpose. UTK with support from Sandia, developped a version of Open MPI where the entire communication infrastucture has been moved down to OPAL (btl/rcache/allocator/mpool). Most of the moved components have been updated to match the new schema, with few exceptions (mainly BTLs where I have no way of compiling/testing them). Thus, the completion of this RFC is tied to being able to completing this move for all BTLs. For this we need help from the rest of the Open MPI community, especially those supporting some of the BTLs. A non-exhaustive list of BTLs that qualify here is: mx, portals4, scif, udapl, ugni, usnic.
This commit was SVN r32317.
