The purpose of this standard profile is
--To define a supercomputing application environment profile, based on the POSIX suite of standards, in order
to provide application and user portability in a supercomputing environment.
--To identify additional supercomputing requirements not currently met by formal standards.
This profile specifies standards, options, and additional requirements needed by supercomputing applications and users in a POSIX environment.
This profile focuses on the portability of supercomputing applications and the users of supercomputers.
Supercomputing applications differ from other computing applications in the scale of the compute task. The massive scale of supercomputing applications creates the need for some services that are frequently missing or inadequate in smaller systems. The goal of this profile is to detail an environment that provides these services.
This profile uses the model of the traditional supercomputer environment: a centralized compute and data serve entity with access from other compute and data serve entities of varying capability. While the centralized entity could be one physical machine, there is nothing in this profile to preclude that entity being a collection of workstations or a massively parallel machine that is seen by the user as one entity.
The audience of this profile includes supercomputer procurers, supercomputer vendors, and application developers.
By specifying a list of required standards and any corresponding options, this profile benefits each of the targeted groups.