ACADEMIA

The MOSIX group announces the availability of the first release of the MOSIX Virtual OpenCL (VCL) package, which allows OpenCL applications to transparently utilize many GPU devices in clusters. In the VCL run-time environment all the cluster devices are seen as if they are located in each hosting-node. Applications need not be aware which nodes and devices are available and where the devices are located. As such, VCL benefits OpenCL applications that can use multiple devices concurrently.

VCL can be used to build powerful parallel GPU based clusters from low-cost multi-core hosting nodes by utilizing cluster-wide (CPU and GPU) resources transparently.

VCL is part of the MOSIX Many GPUs Package (MGP), which will also provide extended-OpenMP and C++ APIs for running OpenCL kernels. MGP is geared to simplify the development of parallel programs and to reduce the management complexity needed to run these program on clusters, without sacrificing the overall performance.  For convenience, programs will be provided with a simple API and the impression of a single host with many devices (single-system image).