UFS Supported Platforms and Compilers

This page refers to the UFS Medium-Range Weather Application v1.1 from September 2020. For release v1.0 from March 2020, please see here.

Four levels of support have been defined for UFS applications: pre-configured, configurable, limited-test, and build-only. These levels apply to the following community releases of UFS applications and models:

• UFS Medium-Range Weather Application
• UFS Weather Model

The platforms and compilers that fall into each category are listed below.

NOTE: All testing has been done using Intel 18-19 or GNU 8-9 compilers.

Support Level 1: Pre-Configured Platforms

Pre-configured platforms are platforms where all of the required libraries for building community releases of UFS models and applications are available in a central place. That means bundled libraries (NCEPLIBS) and third-party libraries (NCEP-external) have both been built. Applications and models are expected to build and run out of the box.

System	Compilers used	System Documentation
Cheyenne	Intel 18.0.5, GNU 8.3.0	https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/resources/computational-systems/cheyenne
Hera	Intel 18.0.5	https://heradocs.rdhpcs.noaa.gov/wiki/index.php
Jet	Intel 18.0.5	https://jetdocs.rdhpcs.noaa.gov/wiki/index.php/Start
Gaea	Intel 18.0.6	https://gaeadocs.rdhpcs.noaa.gov/wiki/index.php/Welcome_to_Gaeadocs

Support Level 2: Configurable Platforms

Configurable platforms are platforms where all of the required libraries for building community releases of UFS models and applications are expected to install successfully, but are not available in a central place. Applications and models are expected to build and run once the required bundled libraries (NCEPLIBS) and third-party libraries (NCEP-external) are built.

System	Compilers used	System Documentation
Stampede2	Intel 18.0.2	https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/systems/stampede2
Orion	Intel 18.0.5	https://oriondocs.rdhpcs.noaa.gov/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Support Level 3: Limited-Test Platforms

On limited-test platforms, the required libraries build and the model builds, but only limited testing has been done with running the model. An attempt has been made, where possible, to use the application workflow to do the runs. In other cases the model has been run using simple canned data. In general, the platforms here are macOS and Linux using the open-source GNU compilers (or a combination of the LLVM clang and GNU gfortran compiler for macOS), and the Intel compilers.

System	Compilers used	Status
MacOS Mojave	GNU-9.2.0	App workflow runs end-to-end
MacOS Mojave	LLVM clang-9.0.0 + GNU gfortran 9.2.0	App workflow runs end-to-end
MacOS Catalina	GNU-9.3.0	App workflow runs end-to-end
MacOS Catalina	LLVM clang-9.0.1 + GNU gfortran 9.3.0	App workflow runs end-to-end
Redhat/CentOS Linux 8.1 (Ootpa)	GNU-9.2.1	App workflow runs end-to-end
Ubuntu Linux 18.04 LTS	GNU-8.3.0	App workflow runs end-to-end

For Redhat/CentOS Linux 8.1 (Ootpa) and Ubuntu Linux 18.04 LTS, ready-to-use AMIs (Amazon Media Images) are provided on the Amazon Web Services cloud for the North Virginia region (us-east-1) (called ufs-mrw-v1.1.0-redhat-8 and ufs-mrw-v1.1.0-ubuntu-18). These images are pre-configured following the instructions in NCEPLIBS-external (Redhat 8.1, Ubuntu 18.04) and can be used as-is with the UFS Medium-Range Weather Application or the UFS Weather Model. Limitations: single node use only, up to 24 VCPUs (i.e. restricted to C96 and possibly C192 grid resolutions, depending on the memory; minimum requirements for instances are 16GB of memory for C96, 64GB of memory for C192). Launching instances on Amazon Web Services requires an account and incurs charges to the user.

Support Level 4: Build-Only Platforms

On build-only platforms, the required libraries and model build, but there has been no further testing.