<div dir="ltr">The two cases you mentioned would have the same behavior at an application level. However, there may be important differences in the implementation of each operation. For example, an MPI_Put operation may be configured to not generate a completion event, whereas an MPI_Rput would. The library may be relying on the user to make a call on the request to process the event and clean up resources. The implementation can take over this responsibility if the user cancels the request, but why should we ask implementers to take on this complexity and overhead?<div><br></div><div>My $0.02 is that MPI_Cancel is subtle and complicated, and we should be very careful about where we allow it. I don't see the benefit to the programming model outweighing the complexity and overhead in the MPI runtime for the case of MPI_Rput. I also don't know that we were careful enough in specifying the RMA memory model that a canceled request-based RMA operation will still have well-defined behavior. My understanding is that MPI_Cancel is required primarily for canceling receive requests to meet MPI's quiescent shutdown requirement.<div><br></div><div> ~Jim.</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 8:11 AM HOLMES Daniel via mpi-forum <<a href="mailto:mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org">mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">
Hi all,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>To increase my own understanding of RMA, what is the difference (if any) between a request-based RMA operation where the request is freed without being completed and before the epoch is closed and a “normal” RMA operation?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>MPI_LOCK() ! or any other "open epoch at origin" procedure call</div>
<div>doUserWorkBefore()</div>
<div>MPI_RPUT(&req)</div>
<div>MPI_REQUEST_FREE(&req)</div>
<div>doUserWorkAfter()</div>
<div>MPI_UNLOCK() ! or the matching “close epoch at origin" procedure call</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>vs:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>MPI_LOCK() ! or any other "open epoch at origin" procedure call</div>
<div>doUserWorkBefore()</div>
<div>MPI_PUT()</div>
<div>
<div>doUserWorkAfter()</div>
<div>MPI_UNLOCK() ! or the matching “close epoch at origin" procedure call</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Is this a source-to-source translation that is always safe in either direction?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In RMA, in contrast to the rest of MPI, there are two opportunities for MPI to “block” and do non-local work to complete an RMA operation: 1) during MPI_WAIT for the request (if any - the user may not be given a request or the user may choose
to free the request without calling MPI_WAIT or the user might call nonblocking MPI_TEST) and 2) during the close epoch procedure, which is always permitted to be sufficiently non-local to guarantee that the RMA operation is complete and its freeing stage
has been done. It seems that a request-based RMA operation becomes identical to a “normal” RMA operation if the user calls MPI_REQUEST_FREE on the request. This is like “freeing" the request from a nonblocking point-to-point operation but without the guarantee
of a later synchronisation procedure that can actually complete the operation and actually do the freeing stage of the operation.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In collectives, there is no “ensure all operations so far are now done” procedure call because there is no concept of epoch for collectives.</div>
<div>
<div>In point-to-point, there is no “ensure all operations so far are now done” procedure call because there is no concept of epoch for point-to-point.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div>In file operations, there is no “ensure all operations so far are now done” procedure call because there is no concept of epoch for file operations. (There is MPI_FILE_SYNC but it is optional so MPI cannot rely on it being called.)</div>
</div>
<div>In these cases, the only non-local procedure that is guaranteed to happen is MPI_FINALIZE, hence all outstanding non-local work needed by the “freed” operation might be delayed until that procedure is called.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The issue with copying parameters is also moot because all of them are passed-by-value (implicitly copied) or are data-buffers and covered by “conflicting accesses” RMA rules.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thus, to me it seems to me that RMA is a very special case - it could support different semantics, but that does not provide a good basis for claiming that the rest of the MPI Standard can support those different semantics - unless we introduce
an epoch concept into the rest of the MPI Standard. This is not unreasonable: the notifications in GASPI, for example, guarantee completion of not just the operation they are attached to but *all* operations issued in the “queue” they represent since the last
notification. Their queue concept serves the purpose of an epoch. I’m sure there are other examples in other APIs. It seems to me likely that the proposal for MPI_PSYNC for partitioned communication operations is moving in the direction of an epoch, although
limited to remote completion of all the partitions in a single operation, which accidentally guarantees that the operation can be freed locally using a local procedure.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
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Cheers,</div>
<div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px">
Dan.</div>
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—<br>
Dr Daniel Holmes PhD<br>
Architect (HPC Research)<br>
<a href="mailto:d.holmes@epcc.ed.ac.uk" target="_blank">d.holmes@epcc.ed.ac.uk</a><br>
Phone: +44 (0) 131 651 3465<br>
Mobile: +44 (0) 7940 524 088<br>
Address: Room 2.09, Bayes Centre, 47 Potterrow, Central Area, Edinburgh, EH8 9BT</div>
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—</div>
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The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.</div>
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—</div>
</div>
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</div>
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<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On 13 Aug 2020, at 01:40, Skjellum, Anthony via mpi-forum <<a href="mailto:mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org" target="_blank">mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org</a>> wrote:</div>
<br>
<div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">
FYI, one argument (also used to force us to add restrictions on MPI persistent collective initialization to be blocking)... <span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">The MPI_Request_free on an NBC poses a problem
for the cases where there are array types</span></div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">
posed (e.g., Alltoallv/w)... It will not be knowable to the application if the vectors are in use by MPI still after </div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">
the free on an active request. We do *not* <span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">mandate that the MPI implementation copy such arrays currently, so they are effectively "held as unfreeable" by the MPI </span><span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">implementation
till MPI_Finalize. The user cannot deallocate them in a correct program till after MPI_Finalize. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">Another effect for NBC of releasing an active request, IMHO, is that you don't know when send buffers are free to be deallocated or receive buffers are free to be deallocated...
since you don't know when the transfer is complete OR the buffers are no longer used by MPI (till after MPI_Finalize).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">Tony</span></div>
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<div style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">
<br>
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<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">Director, SimCenter</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC)</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px"><a href="mailto:tony-skjellum@utc.edu" target="_blank">tony-skjellum@utc.edu</a><span> </span> [or<span> </span><a href="mailto:skjellum@gmail.com" target="_blank">skjellum@gmail.com</a>]</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">cell: 205-807-4968</div>
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<font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt"><b>From:</b><span> </span>mpi-forum <<a href="mailto:mpi-forum-bounces@lists.mpi-forum.org" target="_blank">mpi-forum-bounces@lists.mpi-forum.org</a>> on behalf
of Jeff Hammond via mpi-forum <<a href="mailto:mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org" target="_blank">mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org</a>><br>
<b>Sent:</b><span> </span>Saturday, August 8, 2020 12:07 PM<br>
<b>To:</b><span> </span>Main MPI Forum mailing list <<a href="mailto:mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org" target="_blank">mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b><span> </span>Jeff Hammond <<a href="mailto:jeff.science@gmail.com" target="_blank">jeff.science@gmail.com</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b><span> </span>Re: [Mpi-forum] MPI_Request_free restrictions</font>
<div> </div>
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<div dir="auto" style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none">
We should fix the RMA chapter with an erratum. I care less about NBC but share your ignorance of why it was done that way. <br>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<blockquote type="cite">On Aug 8, 2020, at 6:51 AM, Balaji, Pavan via mpi-forum <<a href="mailto:mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org" target="_blank">mpi-forum@lists.mpi-forum.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"> Folks,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Does someone remember why we disallowed users from calling MPI_Request_free on nonblocking collective requests? I remember the reasoning for not allowing cancel (i.e., the operation might have completed on some processes, but not all), but not
for Request_free. AFAICT, allowing the users to free the request doesn’t make any difference to the MPI library. The MPI library would simply maintain its own refcount to the request and continue forward till the operation completes. One of our users would
like to free NBC requests so they don’t have to wait for the operation to complete in some situations.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Unfortunately, when I added the Rput/Rget operations in the RMA chapter, I copy-pasted that text into RMA as well without thinking too hard about it. My bad! Either the RMA committee missed it too, or they thought of a reason that I can’t think
of now.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Can someone clarify or remind me what the reason was?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> — Pavan</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>MPI-3.1 standard, page 197, lines 26-27:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>“<span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMR10">It is erroneous to call<span> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMSS10">MPI</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMTT10">_</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMSS10">REQUEST</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMTT10">_</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMSS10">FREE<span> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMR10">or<span> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMSS10">MPI</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMTT10">_</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMSS10">CANCEL<span> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:CMR10">for
a request associated with a nonblocking collective operation.</span>”</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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