Vijay Tatkar's Blog

A new gig in the new year
20 years after developing and managing within the Sun Developer Platforms group, particularly, Compilers and Tools, I am now moving to the Cloud Computing Group. This move is part of a business streamlining plan Sun outlined in mid November (the main idea being to re-align Sun's business with changing global picture and to invest in high-growth areas).
Cloud Computing has the potential for realizing significant revenues for Sun which is now increasing focus its on it.
Personally, this is an exciting new area for me and my team. This will mean moving away from an area where I helped my teams establish World Record application performance over the past few years and navigate C and C++ compilers through interesting transitions, especially through new language standards and a new business model, and I'm sad about leaving that behind me. However, all that experience will be invaluable in the new world of Cloud Computing where Sun has plenty of unique things to offer.
So, with a bit of trepidation and a lot of optimism, its time to look forward to the challenges and excitement of 2009.

Posted by tatkar ( Jan 05 2009, 01:05:11 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [2]

Sun ClusterTools 8.1 released
Sun ClusterTools 8.1 is Sun's high-performance MPI library and parallel job launcher based on Open MPI 1.3 . It is fully supported by Sun and includes all features introduced in CT 8.0 earlier this year (the first release to support Linux as well as Solaris), plus with 8.1 we have introduced additional MPI application profiling and Dtrace provider support, as well as key bugfixes.
Some of the significant features are:

• Support for Linux (RHEL 4&5, SLES 9&10), Solaris 10, OpenSolaris
• Support for Sun Studio compilers on Solaris and Linux, plus the GNU/gcc toolchain on Linux
• MPI profiling support with Sun Studio Analyzer (see SSX 11.2008), plus support for VampirTrace and MPI PERUSE
• Infiniband multi-rail support
• Mellanox ConnectX Infiniband support
• DTrace provider support on Solaris
• Enhanced performance and scalability, including processor affinity support
• Support for InfiniBand, GbE, 10GbE, and Myrinet interconnects
• Plug-ins for Sun Grid Engine (SGE) and Portable Batch System (PBS)
• Full MPI-2 standard compliance, including MPI I/O and one sided communication

Posted by tatkar ( Nov 18 2008, 04:29:38 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

OpenSolaris launched and Sun Studio is in the network package repository OpenSolaris is here! Its formal launch at CommunityOne (the day prior to JavaOne in San Francisco) has attracted a lot of attention. It was picked up by The Register (here), Application Developer Trends (here), etc. Comments have ranged from "Cool, this is new and exciting" to "Looks just like Linux" (including the site www.opensolaris.com).
An interesting bit of praise comes from this article in ZDnet, titled What Ubuntu wants to be, when it grows up
OpenSolaris comes with full support, ranging from per incident support to a full 24x7 plan, geared fully towards supporting (as they call it) "from dorm room to the corporate board room".
OpenSolaris used to be called Project Indiana, for those in the community more familiar with that name.
 
The new distribution includes a small core operating system on a LiveCD, a network package repository, application packages, and the Sun-developed Image Packaging System (IPS) to hold it all together. With a small LiveCD, you can quickly (with just 6 clicks) install a desktop with a core set of utilities to assemble a simple desktop including Firefox and Thunderbird. IPS lets users easily download and install only the OpenSolaris components they want, rather than a monolithic bundle. And  IPS also supports current Solaris packages, for backward compatibility. All the old stuff still works the same way. You can add/customize your desktop or server with components you need, as you need them through the network package repository. The classic "packages" are all there in the repository:

• Sun Studio 12, which is used to build OpenSolaris
• NetBeans IDE For Java, C/C++ and Ruby Development
• Project GlassFish, the free, open-source, production-ready, supported application server
• Java
• MySQL, Sun's OpenSource database
• OpenOffice, Sun's Free Office Productivity Suite

Give it a try! I think you'll like it. I know I did and I have it installed now on a Toshiba Tecra laptop and a Sun Ultra 20 Desktop.
Posted by tatkar ( May 07 2008, 10:56:27 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

ClusterTools 8 Early Access available
The ClusterTools 8 (CT8) Early Access 1 (EA1) release is now available at
http://www.sun.com/software/products/clustertools/early_access.xml
The CT8 EA1 software is a set of MPI libraries and tools for launching parallel MPI jobs on Solaris (SPARC and x86/x64). New in CT8 EA1 is MPI profiling support via VampirTrace and MPI PERUSE, Infiniband multi-rail communication, support for C++ applications built with STLport4 (in addition to the standard library libCstd, as well as other fixes and features contributed to Open MPI by the community.
CT8 EA1 is based on the upcoming Open MPI 1.3 release.
See http://www.open-mpi.org.
And yes, it works with Sun Studio 12, of course!
Posted by tatkar ( Mar 27 2008, 08:00:42 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Russian Developer Web Portal launched
Sun's Russian team has launched Russian developer web portal  http://developers.sun.ru.
This is designed specifically to make Sun technologies closer to Russian developers, teachers and students.

The portal is not just a translated replica of developers.sun.com. Instead, it makes an introduction to the technologies in Russian to make them understandable for beginning developers, teachers and students. Articles and other materials at the portal sometimes refer to English materials at developers.sun.com or sun.com websites to give source for deeper knowledges.

The portal contains translated articles and news as well as originally written ones - all of them in Russian. There are 7 sections in the Portal (Solaris, HPC, Java ME, JavaFX, NetBeans, Java EE, For_Students).
Posted by tatkar ( Feb 12 2008, 03:46:08 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

New Solaris Application Programming Book!
Senior Compiler engineer from Sun, Darryl Gove, has a new tome called Solaris Application Programming.
The book is a comprehensive guide to optimizing the performance of applications running on the Solaris operating system. Darryl covers the fundamentals of system performance, using analysis and optimization tools to their fullest, and shows you how to get the most from Solaris systems and applications.
It's available on Safari Online and for pre-order from Amazon.com.
Posted by tatkar ( Jan 03 2008, 05:01:14 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Good news! Sun is leader of OpenSource contributions!
The European Commission on FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) has released a new report on the Economic Impact of FLOSS on innovation and competitiveness on the Information and Communication Technologies sector. One of their findings is interesting that  Sun contributes to and participates in more open source projects than any other commercial company, including IBM, Red Hat, Novell and HP. See this report for all details:  http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf
This doesnt even include the OpenSourcing of Java!
Other interesting tidbits gleaned from this:

• 62% of code is developed by individuals; about 19% by "industry" and another 12% by education institutions
• India is the leading provider of FLOSS developers; China is second
• The monetary value of voluntary contributions is about 800Million Euros per year; half of which comes from Europe
• FLOSS potentially saves the industry about 36% of R&D costs, which can be invested elsewhere
• US still leads in terms of large FLOSS-related businesses
• Only 3-4% of firms in Japan have adopted Linux; in Europe that number is around 35-40%
• The top FLOSS usage is in: Linux, OpenOffice, PostgreSQL/MySQL and Mozilla/FireFox
• UC (Berkeley), MIT and CMU are the leading educational institutions that contribute to FLOSS development
  
• Sun outranks #2 IBM,  #3 RedHat, #4 SGI. Sun outpaces IBM by over 3x in contribution; 5x over RedHat
• The most important reason developers participate in open source communities is to learn new skills for free

Theres a lot more to the report than this. Its definitely worth a read, or at least a browse( its a 287 page doc).


Posted by tatkar ( Jan 16 2007, 03:10:36 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Highly Optimized OpenSource SPARC Software Stack (Cool Stack)
Cool Stack is a collection of some of the most commonly used open source applications optimized for the Sun Solaris OS / UltraSPARC platform.
Cool Stack is built with the latest version of compilers, SunStudio 11 and built with -xO4 level of optimization. These packages thus compiled show anywhere between 30-200% performance improvement (depending on workload/application) over standard compilations performed using GCC.
The following are included in the Optimized CoolStack collection:

• CSQamp. This package includes Apache HTTP Server 2.0.58, MySQL 5.0.22 and PHP 5.1.4 built to work together.
• CSQmysql. This package includes a 64bit version of MySQL 5.0.22 and is built with innodb. 
• CSQperl. This package includes an optimized version of  Perl 5.8.8 (the version shipped with Solaris 10 is not optimized) Note that Solaris 10 ships with the same version of Perl.
• CSQphp. This package provides a stand-alone installation of PHP 5.1.4  and can also be used via FastCGI from any other web server. 
• CSQsquid. This package includes Squid 2.5.STABLE14 Web Proxy Cache.

Cool Stack is available for download from the Sun Download Center.
These are supported via the Cool Tools Stack Community Forum here.
Nice to see that its getting some recognition like this report here Posted by tatkar ( Sep 20 2006, 03:12:37 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [3]

SDN (Sun Developer Network) Channel is now a blog
If you haven't seen it already, the NEW SDN Channel Blog is now live! This takes SDN Channel to a new level. With over 45,000 video downloads last month, the video asset is now an integral part of the site, evolving the Channel into a blog format for increased audience interaction.
New features include:

• New show notes section, highlighting the latest links, demos, blogs, and downloads
• New sections on Events and Community
• Link referrals to del.icio.us, digg, slashdot

This month's edition is all about Identity. Check it out!
Posted by tatkar ( Sep 08 2006, 08:39:02 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

The Search for a new HPC language
Getting new languages adopted into the market is pretty rare; only a few have succeeded over time: Fortran, COBOL, C, C++ and Java are perhaps the best known of this lot. Adoption and popularity have often led to such fierce loyalty that getting new programming languages adopted has become a very high-barrier endeavor.
DARPA, through its HPCS program, is attempting to deliver a paradigm shift. The theory goes that creating a new general-purpose language for high performance computing will offer a different way to think about the problem.
The latest issue of HPCwire examines the three new emerging languages proposed as part of the DARPA effort: Chapel (Cray), X10 (IBM) and Fortress (Sun) .
I think the following links are a must-read for anyone who is interested in whats emerging in the HPC market and how leading vendors are going to offer a way out of the current limitations.
The first one discusses the motivation to Search for a new HPC language .
The second is an interview with Rusky Lusk, Acting Division Director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, about how this part of the HPCS program will proceed as Phase II comes to a close.
I cant do enough justice in this blog to the topic; the above links say much more than I can and in more detail.
Personal note: I am sometimes asked at customer meetings about the direction that Sun is going to propose for development in the emerging CMT era (because Sun, more than anyone else, is seen as a technical leader in this market). My answers often wander around MPI, OpenMP, Parallel language extensions such as UPC, HPF, etc. I also mention the DARPA efforts in this regard. Clearly all of these are long-term efforts, not quick fixes in the short term to exploit the dual-core, quad-core and multi-core chips.
PPS. Sun has had other bloggers also talk about this aspect of the DARPA/HPCS program. One of the most profilic blogs is the HPCS languages moving forward and about the search for a new HPCL language . I'd urge y'all to go to this site from time to time; it has many interesting nuggets that I have learned from.
Posted by tatkar ( Aug 29 2006, 10:22:32 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

SunTech Days scheduled; you're invited!
SunTech Days are a Sun-sponsored Worldwide Developer Conference.
Its a terrific opportunity for developers to learn about all of the latest technologies.
Attend expert-led technical sessions on:

• SunStudio and Developer Tools
• Solaris OS
• Web 2.0
• Open Source
• Java SE
• Java EE
• Java ME

There are several locations where the conference will be held; this year, the plan is to hold it in

• Seattle (US)
• Shanghai and Beijing (China)
• Buenos Aires (Argentina)
• Seoul (S. Korea)
• Prague (Czech Republic)
• Hyderabad (India)
• Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
• London (UK)
• Atlanta (US)
• St. Petersburg (Russia)
• Sao Paulo (Brazil)
• Mexico City (Mexico)

No registration fee, but space is limited. Register today.
For more information about other upcoming events in the Sun Tech Days 2006 - 2007 World Tour, join the Sun Developer Network.
You will find presentations, Instructor-led training sessions,(here) featured keynotes, and a ton of other info at this site.
Come join us, be part of the growing Sun Developer Community.

Posted by tatkar ( Aug 11 2006, 10:56:19 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

The Register teaches you to write a C++ loop (Humor)
The Register (or rather Reg Developer ) had a hilarious take on Writing a C++ Loop .
A must read; do take a look!
Posted by tatkar ( Aug 09 2006, 11:41:03 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Feature Comparison of Linux Compilers And Tools

Product Components	Sun Studio	Intel   Compilers	Open Source	PathScale EKO	Portland Group PGI	Absoft
Product Pricing / Cluster Pricing	Free Product Various support options	Free non-commercial $399 C++, $699 Fortran $9999 Cluster OpenMP	Free Product  Support from vendors	$1495 w/ support $1995	$989 + $3949 Cluster Kit	$799
Compilers	C, C++, Fortran	EDG-based C++, Fortran. C++ also supports C	GCC , G++, g77	Gnu-based C, C++, SGI based Fortran	Fortran, C	Mainly Fortran, Preview C/C++
Debugger	World class dbx Debugger + IDE	Intel debugger	gdb	CLI Pathdb with gdb syntax	PGdbg	Fx2
Runtime  Performance	World Class FP, OMP, good C, C++	World Class C, C++, reasonable FP, OMP	Good C, C++	Good C, C++, Very good FP	Good FP	??
Performance Math libraries	libm, libmopt, libm.il libsunperf: BLAS, FFT, LAPACK, ...	Math Kernel Library	ATLAS GOTO ACML	Optimized ACML	SCALAPACK parallel Math libs BLAS, LAPACK serial library Optimized ACML	Prebuilt BLAS, ATLAS on CD LAPACK95
Cluster Support	Sun ClusterTools, MPI libs, Perf Analyzer	Intel Cluster Toolkit, Intel MPI Library, Thread Analyzer, Thread Collector, Cluster MKL	OpenMPI MPICH		Additional package CDT, Precompiled MPICH	Cluster Software Kit
OpenMP Support and threading tools	Compilers: OMP2.5 support in C, C++, Fortran Debugger Perf Analyzer, RDT (Datarace)	Compilers: OMP2.5 support, Thread checker, Thread Profiler	Not yet	C, C++, Fortran: OMP2.5 support	C, C++, Fortran support for OMP, Debugger, Profiler	VAST/F
Other libraries/tools offered	libgc, RW Tools.h++, STLport, mediaLib	Intel Integrated Performance Primitives	glibc	libm, support for MKL	TORQUE resource manager (OpenPBS)	CD contains Matfor, IMSL libraries
Profilers	Collector, Performance Analyzer	Vtune	gprof		PGProf
IDE	Netbeans-based	Integrated with Eclipse	Eclipse?

Additionally, for all compilers listed above :
. Support for 32bit x86 as well as 64bit  x64. 64bit support includes: Athlon64, AMD Opteron and Pentium Xeon with EM64T
. 32bit binaries run unchanged on 64bit  Linux
. Support for SSE, SSE2 and SSE3, prefetching, vectorization and automatic parallelization
. Compatible with code generated by gcc (C) and gdb
. Fully optimizing compilers with frameworks for advanced optimizations

Reference Sites:
PathScale Compiler Suite for AMD64: http://www.pathscale.com/ekopath.html
PGI High Performance Compilers and Tools: http://www.pgroup.com/
Absoft® Fortran Compilers for 32-bit and 64-bit Linux : http://www.absoft.com/Products/Compilers/Fortran/Linux/fortran95/index.html
Intel®  Compilers for Linux: http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/compilers/284264.htm

Posted by tatkar ( Jul 27 2006, 11:21:34 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [2]