Intel® MPI Library Release Notes for Windows* OS

ID 763696
Updated 3/18/2024
Version 2021.12
Public

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Overview

Intel® MPI Library for Windows OS* is a high-performance interconnect-independent multi-fabric library implementation of the industry-standard Message Passing Interface, v3.1 (MPI-3.1) and partial support for v4.0 (MPI-4.0)*.

To receive technical support and updates, you need to register your product copy. See Technical Support below.

Key Features

This release of the Intel(R) MPI Library supports the following major features:

  • MPI-1, MPI-2.2 and MPI-3.1 specification conformance
  • *MPI 4.0 supported features: Large Counts, Sessions, Persistent Collectives
  • Interconnect independence
  • C, C++, Fortran 77, Fortran 90 and Fortran 2008 language bindings
  • Amazon* AWS/EFA, Google* GCP support

Product Contents

  • The Intel® MPI Library Runtime Environment (RTO) contains the tools you need to run programs including scalable process management system (Hydra), supporting utilities, and dynamic libraries.
  • The Intel® MPI Library Development Kit (SDK) includes all of the Runtime Environment components and compilation tools: compiler wrapper scripts, include files and modules, debug libraries, and test codes.

You can redistribute the library under conditions specified in the License.

What's New

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 12

  • MPI 4.0: Persistent Collectives, Large count – RMA and Derived datatypes
  • New control variables for NIC pinning/assignment: I_MPI_OFI_NIC_LIST and I_MPI_OFI_NIC_AFFINITY
  • Optimized out-of-box CPU pinning on Windows, to fallback to old implementation please use: set I_MPI_HYDRA_TOPOLIB=ipl.
  • For the 2021.12 release, the Third Party Programs file has been included as a section in this product’s release notes rather than as a separate text file.
  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 11

  • MPI 4.0 Sessions.
  • Bug fixes.
  • Directory Layout

    Directory layout is improved across all products to streamline installation and setup.
    The Unified Directory Layout is implemented in 2024.0. If you have multiple toolkit versions installed, the Unified layout ensures that your development environment contains the correct component versions for each installed version of the toolkit.
    The directory layout used before 2024.0, the Component Directory Layout, is still supported on new and existing installations.
    For detailed information about the Unified layout, including how to initialize the environment and advantages with the Unified layout, refer to Use the setvars and oneapi-vars Scripts with Windows.

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 10

  • Intel MPI performance optimization for new Xeon platforms
  • New wrapper scripts for LLVM based compilers 
  • Large counts support for ILP64 (point-to-point, collectives)
  • Waitmode support (Tech preview)
  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 9

  • Pinning optimizations for Hybrid CPUs with P-cores and E-cores
  • MPI 4.0 - big counts (Tech Preview, C interface, collectives only) 
  • User authentication process has changed, hydra_service only necessary for domain based authentication, refer to manual for details.
  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 8

  • Intel® MPI library provides initial support for the Intel® Data Center GPU MAX Series (formerly code-named Ponte Vecchio) utilizing XE Link for direct GPU to GPU communications
  • Intel® MPI Library speeds cluster application performance by utilizing the new embedded Data Streaming Accelerator in 4th Generation Xeon Scalable Processors (formerly code-named Sapphire Rapids).
  • Intel® MPI Library 2021.8 has implemented performance optimizations for Intel GPUs and Intel® Xeon® CPU Max Series.
  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 7.1

  • Intel® MPI Library 2021.7.1 has been updated to include functional and security updates. Users should update to the latest version as it becomes available.

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 7

  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 6

  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 5

  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 4

  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 3

  • Added 3rd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors support
  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 2

  • Tuning performance on Intel® Ethernet 800 Series Network Adapters
  • Performance and stability improvements for OFI/tcp provider 
  • Spawn stability improvements
  • Mellanox* OFED 5.2 support
  • Technology Preview. Extended support for Singularity containers for IBM* Spectrum* LSF*, SLURM
  • Fixed hang with large messages (>2GiB) 
  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 1

  • NetworkDirect API support

  • User registration process has been changed, use mpiexec -register to update registry records.

  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 10

  • Added new launch mode in Process Manager (see I_MPI_HYDRA_BSTRAP_KEEP_ALIVE for details)
  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 9

  • I_MPI_ADJUST_SENDRECV_REPLACE optimization
  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 8

  • Microsoft* NetworkDirect API support (technical preview)
  • Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9282/9242/9222/9221 family optimizations and platform recognition
  • ILP64 support (see known issues and limitations for more details)
  • impi_info tool extensions (-e|-expert option)
  • Bug fixes

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 7

  • Added performance optimizations for Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 (formerly Cascade Lake-AP).
  • Added IBM* Platform LSF* support to Hydra process manager.
  • IPv6 support

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 6

  • Added performance optimizations for Intel® Xeon® Platinum 9200 (formerly Cascade Lake-AP).

  • Added non-blocking collective operations support for Autotuner.
  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 5

  • Added autotuner functionality (I_MPI_TUNING_MODE, I_MPI_ADJUST__LIST).
  • Added basic “Wait Mode” support (I_MPI_WAIT_MODE).
  • Improved single node startup time (I_MPI_FABRICS=shm).
  • Disabled environment variables spellchecker by default (I_MPI_VAR_CHECK_SPELLING, I_MPI_REMOVED_VAR_WARNING).

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 4

  • Implemented the NUMA-aware SHM-based Bcast algorithm (I_MPI_ADJUST_BCAST).
  • Added the application runtime autotuning (I_MPI_TUNING_AUTO).
  • Added the -hosts-group option to set node ranges using square brackets, commas, and dashes (for example, nodeA[01-05],nodeB).
  • Added the ability to terminate a job if it has not been started successfully during a specified time period in seconds (I_MPI_JOB_STARTUP_TIMEOUT).
  • Added the IBM POE* trust processes placement.
  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 3

  • Performance improvements.
  • Custom memory allocator is added and available by default in release and debug configurations (I_MPI_MALLOC).
  • MPI-IO enhancements (I_MPI_EXTRA_FILESYSTEM).
  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 2

  • Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 2 includes functional and security updates. Users should update to the latest version.

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 1

  • Conditional Numerical Reproducibility feature is added (I_MPI_CBWR variable).
  • Customized Libfabric 1.7.0 alpha sources and binaries are updated.
  • Platform recognition is restored (I_MPI_PLATFORM* variables).
  • Spellchecker is added for I_MPI_* variables (I_MPI_VAR_CHECK_SPELLING variable).
  • Multiple bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2019

  • Customized Libfabric 1.6.1 sources are included.
  • Customized Libfabric 1.6.1 with sockets, psm2, and verbs providers binaries is included.
  • Multiple bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2018 Update 5

  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2018 Update 4

  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2018 Update 3

  • Performance improvements.

Intel® MPI Library 2018 Update 2

  • Improved shm performance with collective operations (I_MPI_SCHED_YIELD, _MPI_SCHED_YIELD_MT_OPTIMIZATION).

Intel® MPI Library 2018 Update 1

  • Bug fixes.

Intel® MPI Library 2018

  • Deprecated support for the IPM statistics format.
  • Hard finalization is now the default.
  • Documentation has been removed from the product and is now available online.

Intel® MPI Library 2017 Update 4

  • Minor changes.

Intel® MPI Library 2017 Update 3

  • Minor changes.

Intel® MPI Library 2017 Update 2

  • Added an environment variable I_MPI_HARD_FINALIZE.

Intel® MPI Library 2017 Update 1

  • Support for topology-aware collective communication algorithms (I_MPI_ADJUST family).
  • Deprecated support for cross-OS launches.

Intel® MPI Library 2017

  • Support for the MPI-3.1 standard.
  • Removed the SMPD process manager.
  • Removed the SSHM support.
  • Deprecated support for the Intel® microarchitectures older than the generation codenamed Sandy Bridge.
  • Bug fixes and performance improvements.
  • Documentation improvements.

Known Issues and Limitations

  • Single-process run with I_MPI_FABRICS=shm may lead to crash. Please use out-of-box settings or I_MPI_FABRICS=shm:ofi instead.
  • To use shared memory only and avoid network initialization on the single node, please explicitly set I_MPI_FABRICS=shm.
  • Server Message Block (SMB) shares may be unavailable for MPI processes in case of powershell bootstrap (out-of-box behavior). Consider Network File System (NFS) usage or domain-based authorization for this case.
  • New optimized pinning logic on Windows currently does not support full list of pinning environment variables. To switch back to old pinning logic set I_MPI_HYDRA_TOPOLIB=ipl.

Removals

sockets provider will be removed starting with 2021.10 release

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 10

  • sockets provider

  • mpitune (replacement: mpitune_fast)

Intel® MPI Library 2021 Update 5

  • Microsoft* Visual Studio* Compilers 2017
  • Intel® Xeon Phi™ 72xx processors

Intel® MPI Library 2019 Update 5

  • Deprecated Legacy Hydra Process Manager.
  • Deprecated support for Intel® Xeon® processors E5/E7 v1, v2.
  • Deprecated support for Intel® Xeon Phi™ 2nd generation.

Intel® MPI Library 2019

  • Removed the single-threaded library
  • Wait Mode feature that depends on substituted fabrics and related variable:I_MPI_WAIT_MODE
  • Hetero-OS support
  • Support of platforms older than Sandy Bridge
  • Multi-threaded memcpy support (removed I_MPI_MT* variables)

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Technical Support

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In order to get support you need to register your product in the Intel® Registration Center. If your product is not registered, you will not receive Priority Support.

Additional Resources

Intel® MPI Library

Third Party Programs File