On: Mapping Out the HPC Dependency Chaos

[throw0101c]

> Why not just containerize your software and run the container on the HPC cluster?

Docker needs root access which is a big no-no in multi-user environments.

Singularity/Apptainer was developed (with HPC in mind) so that non-admin users could run containerized workloads, and Spack supports creating such workloads:

* https://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/containers.html

[bayindirh → throw0101c]

Singularity and Apptainer are not silver bullets tho. Both have their limitations and own problems to solve.

They will mature eventually, but bare metal is still the king in HPC realm.

[throw0101c → bayindirh]

We have bare metal HPC nodes, but some users want to run containerized apps for their batch jobs: it's not either-or, it's both-and.

[bayindirh → throw0101c]

Of course, it’s same for us. I just wanted to point out that these technologies cannot replace bare metal installations for every case as of today.