NOTE The software section of our HPC.llnl.gov site, below and in left sidebar, is dedicated to software that is deployed on LC systems and used by our LC systems users. However, LLNL also creates and contributes to hundreds of software packages and research projects that are used and respected worldwide. To find our Open Source Software catalog, see software.llnl.gov. To find the Computing directorate's research software projects, see computing.llnl.gov/projects. Internal users interested in our institutional efforts towards a universal software stack should check out RADIUSS.
Useful introductory information on LC's software environment is presented in the Software and Development Environment section of the Introduction to Livermore Computing Resources, or the Linux Clusters Overview for system-specific information.
There are several categories of software that are particularly useful to our users:
Modules and Software Packaging
Livermore Computing uses LMod modules for packaging much of the software available on LC systems, including compilers, MPI, CUDA, debuggers, performance tools, and math libraries. See Modules and Software Packaging for details and usage information.
Archival Storage Software
The High Performance Storage System (HPSS) is available on all OCF (CZ/RZ) and SCF production systems. More information is available at Archival Storage Software.
Data Management Tools
LC provides users with a variety of powerful and time-conserving ways to access, search, transfer, and archive large-scale scientific data. From custom applications that cater to the specific needs of LC customers to general data management tools useful in any situation, we have you covered. The Data Management Tools Overview contains a list of the various tools available to LC users, along with suggestions for when and where to use them. Among the most heavily used tools is Hopper, a powerful interactive tool that allows users to graphically move, copy, find, delete, and otherwise operate on files. Other critical tools include a rich set of interfaces to the HPSS archive and an MPI-based suite of tools for efficiently operating on files in Lustre.
Development Environment Software
The Development Environment Group (DEG) provides a stable, usable, leading-edge parallel application development environment that enables users to improve the reliability and scalable performance of LLNL applications. DEG also works to make the computing tools reliable and scalable and helps users make effective use of the tools. The list of DEG Supported Software and Computing Tools for debugging, memory, trace generation and visualization, profiling, etc., provides the tool type and name, its location, the platforms on which it runs, and links to documentation.
Lorenz Dashboard (MyLC)
Lorenz, also known as MyLC, applies state-of-the-art web technologies towards the goal of making High Performance Computing (HPC) easier for everyone. The name Lorenz comes from Edward Lorenz, the 20th century mathematician and meteorologist who is recognized as the father of modern chaos theory. Lorenz provides a variety of functionality, including: a system "dashboard" aimed at making information about the computing center easy to determine at a glance; job management (submission and monitoring);general purpose web-based utilities. For information on configuring and using your portal, see the MyLC help page.
Mathematical Software
Our Mathematical Software Overview compares the chief mathematical subroutine libraries available and explains the lookup and support tools (including reference manuals) that help you use those libraries effectively. It also introduces a few important, commercial, interactive math tools available at LC.
Systems Software
Large Linux data centers require flexible system management. LC is committed to supporting our Linux ecosystem at the high end of commodity computing. Administrators of Linux clusters will find an array of robust tools developed at LLNL for platform management, authentication, and I/O analysis. Explore our Linux clusters tutorial.
All LC commodity Linux clusters use the TOSS (Tri-Laboratory Operating System Stack) operating system, which was originally developed from the CHAOS (Clustered High Availability Operating System) project and derived from a Red Hat release. Resource managers such as SLURM allocate computing resources to running jobs, and our latest resource manager, Flux, is documented and available on Flux's GitHub. Explore our tutorial on how users can use Flux for scheduling complex workflows.
High performance parallel data storage is provided using the Lustre filesystem.
Visualization and Data Analysis Tools
The visualization team develops and supports tools for visualizing and presenting scientific data generated by users of the LC high-performance computing Center. Team members are experienced in the use of graphics libraries and environments ranging from "turn-key" tools (e.g., EnSight, AVS, Tecplot, VisIt) to visualization libraries (e.g., IDL and OpenGL) to utilities such as plotting packages and image conversion programs. Our Visualization and Data Analysis Software is a listing of supported graphics software. This includes information about each of the products, how to set up your environment to run the software, documentation pointers, and information on installing a local copy of the software if applicable.
Looking for Other Software Resources at LLNL?
In addition to the user software listed above and linked to in the left sidebar menu, there are several places to discover more general LLNL Open Source software.