Open Systems Lab researchers have made major contributions to the most current version of a critical standard for the Message Passing Interface (MPI) used to program modern supercomputers. 

MPI is a standard that specifies how different processors can coordinate actions and share data; it defines the most successful programming model in existence for programming supercomputers. The Open Systems Lab is a major contributor to the Open MPI implementation of the MPI standard. The Open MPI project is a leading production-quality, open-source implementation at the forefront of research innovation, high performance and high quality development in the HPC community.

Participation in the MPI Forum, the standard-setting organization for Open MPI, is an activity of international importance in the supercomputing community. During 2008 experienced researchers from the OSL participated in the standardization effort of the upcoming MPI standards. OSL researchers continue to play a leading role in MPI-2.2 standardization by co-authoring the collective operation chapter of the new standard. The newest research results will be included in the upcoming MPI-3 standard to enable large-scale program optimization. OSL researchers are also participating in the Fault Tolerance Working Group of the MPI Forum.