EasyBuild Tech Talks III: FlexiBLAS (Martin Köhler, Max Planck Institute)
Channel: EasyBuild
Date: 29/03/2021

EasyBuild Tech Talk III: FlexiBLAS - A BLAS and LAPACK wrapper library with runtime exchangeable backends, by Martin Köhler (Max Planck Institute Magdeburg)
on Mon Mar 29th 2021 - 3pm UTC

Slides available at https://easybuilders.github.io/easybuild/files/easybuild-tech-talks/easybuild_tech_talks_003_FlexiBLAS_20210329.pdf

More information at https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/wiki/EasyBuild-tech-talks-III:-FlexiBLAS .

Abstract:

The Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines (BLAS) and the Linear Algebra Package (LAPACK) are two of the most fundamental libraries in Scientific Computing. Since the NETLIB implementation only defines the interfaces and the expected behavior, many implementations exist. Most of them are developed by CPU vendors or at least supported by them.

The FlexiBLAS framework allows to switch between several implementations at runtime without the need to recompile any part of the software project. This can either be done before the application starts or even at runtime using an additional API. In the talk, the details about the implementation of FlexiBLAS will be presented. The design of the library allows the integration of further instrumentation tools. This feature is covered briefly as well. Using this technique, a bug in Goto/OpenBLAS was found, which stayed there for many years.

Links:
  https://www.mpi-magdeburg.mpg.de/projects/flexiblas
  https://gitlab.mpi-magdeburg.mpg.de/software/flexiblas-release 
  (GitHub mirror: https://github.com/mpimd-csc/flexiblas)