[Mpi3-tools] Tools WG status report for SC 2010

[Bronis R. de Supinski]

Martin:

Re:
> As some/most of you have probably seen, Rich asked for 2-3
> slide overview/status update from each WG for his presentation
> on the MPI-3 efforts during the SC MPI BoF. Attached is a first
> draft for our activities in the tools WG. Please let me know if
> have any comments or suggestions. Rich needs this by Friday,
> so please answer as soon as possible.

At a high level, these slides are rather dry. I have
found the BoF presentations to be somewhat boring in
the past and these slides won't change that. I think
it would be good to have two more slides that graphically
illustrate the main thrusts. The first could show how
MPIT will work (and, at least to some extent, what it
is good for). The second could illustrate the MPIR
acquisition interface and why we need to extend it
before we incorporate it into the standard.

At a slightly lower level, what these slides are missing
is related to what you need to show graphically. You
say MPIR is not ideal but you provide nothing that
backs up that statement other than "has scalability
problems". I think you need to show it has those problems
and you need to state that it cannot support dynamic
processes (and that one can expect dynamic processes
will become important to fault tolerance so they are
likely to be used in the future even if they are not
today). Similarly, you don't give any real feel for
what MPIT is or how one would use it and why. Covering
those issues are of much more interest to a general
audience than a status report on something they
do not know enough about to evaluate.

Bronis