VMI 2.0 alpha 1 released!

[Avneesh <apant@ncsa.uiuc.edu>]

Virtual Machine Interface Software Version 2.0 ALPHA Release
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The National Center for Supercomputing Applications announces the first
alpha release of version 2.0 of the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) 
software. VMI is a middleware communication layer that addresses the
issues of availability, usability, and management in the context of 
large-scale SANs interconnected over wide-area computational grids.
This is an alpha release intended for developers and early-adopters.
Although the software has undergone extensive testing, some bugs are
bound to be present. Furthermore, because this is an alpha release, 
some features may not yet be fully developed.
Features of VMI 2.0 include:
* Support for multiple communication interconnects including shared 
memory (on multi-processor machines), TCP/IP, Myrinet (GM), and VIA 
* Support for the industry standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) 
parallel computing API, enabling many existing codes to run in a 
cluster environment simply by recompiling 
* Binary portability of MPI applications across interconnects without
requiring recompilation of application software 
* Dynamic feature configuration, allowing VMI modules for features 
such as communication interconnect support or profiling to be loaded
and unloaded as needed 
* Data striping across heterogeneous networks to achieve higher 
bandwidth than is available from a single communications interface 
* Dynamic failover across heterogeneous networks, allowing a 
computation to continue running over any remaining network 
interfaces if the primary network interface fails 
* Remote monitoring and management of the entire VMI middleware layer,
allowing a user to track and modify the performance of the 
communications layer during application execution
Source code is available under a liberal open source style license that
allows redistribution in source or binary form provided that copyright
notices and disclaimers remain intact.
The release is available for download from the VMI project web page at
http://vmi.ncsa.uiuc.edu/.
Access to documentation, a bug reporting tool, 
and support mail lists is also available from the web page.

The VMI Team
Cluster and Software Tools Group,
Computing and Data Management Division,
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)