Testing the SRW w/ spack-stack Unified Environment

[ulmononian]

Description

While the transition from hpc-stack to spack-stack on the weather model side is ongoing (e.g.: UFS-WM #1448, Acorn spack testing, a new spack-based Unified Environment (UE) has been installed by @climbfuji on Orion to help facilitate the switch. This environment contains a "unified" set of compiler+MPI, libraries/packages, and modules to support the UFS-WM and various related apps (e.g., global-workflow, SRW, JCSDA Skylab, and GSI). The UE installation is here on Orion: /work2/noaa/da/dheinzel/spack-stack/spack-stack-unified-env/envs/unified-dev/install and can be loaded via:

module use /work2/noaa/da/dheinzel/spack-stack/spack-stack-unified-env/envs/unified-dev/install/modulefiles/Core

module av

Testing of the UE is underway on Orion with the UFS-WM, SRW, and Skylab, and pending further successful results, the environment will be installed on other R&D machines (Hera, Cheyenne, Jet, etc.) for further testing and validation.

The SRW has been built using the UE on Orion (w/ Intel compiler/MPI) and can be found here: /work2/noaa/epic-ps/cbook/ue/ufs-srweather-app (temporary). The test set from ufs-srweather-app/tests/WE2E/machine_suites/fundamental is currently in progress here: /work2/noaa/epic-ps/cbook/ue/ufs-srweather-app/expt_dir/ue_tests. Regression testing and cross-comparison between the UFS-WM built/run with the hpc-stack and spack-stack UE is ongoing.

If any SRW developers/users would like to test the SRW using the UE, a feature branch that has updated build_orion_intel/srw_common_spack module files has been created here: feature/test_spack_ue.

This issue is ultimately just to open discussion surrounding the move to spack-stack and to identify issues that may arise in the transition.

[climbfuji]

Thanks @ulmononian . One thing I would like to note, we should check if moving to spack-stack solves the long-standing problem of using different environments for building and running. I am positive that this is the case, but someone who understands the problem a lot better should check.

[ulmononian]

Update: with #570 resolved, the test set from ufs-srweather-app/tests/WE2E/machine_suites/fundamental is currently in progress here: /work2/noaa/epic-ps/cbook/ue/ufs-srweather-app/expt_dir/ue_tests.

[ulmononian]

fundamental tests completed successfully on orion w/ @climbfuji's UE (see screenshot):