2018-07-03

Docker containers for high performance computing

I have started to see more science application authors/groups provide their applications as Docker images. Having only a passing acquaintance with Docker (and with containers in general), I found this article at The New Stack useful: Containers for High Performance Computing (Joab Jackson).

The vendors of the tools I use -- Bright Cluster Manager, Univa Grid Engine -- have incorporated support for containers. It is good to read some independent information about the role of containers in HPC.

Christian Kniep of Docker points out some issues with the interaction of HPC and Docker, and came up with a preliminary solution (a proxy for Docker Engine) to address the issues. HPC commonly makes use of specific hardware (e.g. GPUs, InfiniBand), and this is counter to Docker's hardware-agnostic approach. Also, HPC workflows may rely on shared resources (e.g. i/o to a shared filesystem).

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