.. index:: Intel suite
.. _Intel suite:

Intel suite
===========

Description
-----------

Intel C, C++ and Fortran compilers.  These are extremely efficient and can produce binaries that are substantially faster than those produced by the GNU compilers.

User instructions
-----------------

Only the 64-bit platform is currently installed.  The appropriate platform and version can be loaded using the modules system. For instance:

.. code-block:: bash

    $ module load intel/2017.4.196

Updated versions are released regularly and can be installed on request, but the default is set to version 2017.4.196.  The C compiler is icc, the C++ compiler icpc and the Fortran compiler ifort.  Documentation is available from the manpages, the Intel website and in /common/debian/9.1/Core/intel.

:ref:`MKL` is available as a separate module.

Source
------

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-compiler-suites/

License
-------

Proprietary. Although a free community license can be obtained for MKL. Open source contributors can also qualify for a free license covering the full Intel suite.

Admin notes
-----------

FoNS have paid the license fee since 2010-2011, but there is no guarantee that they will do so in future years.  (Previously CMTH contributed to a department license.)  ICT run the license server and provided the license file (Steve Rochford/Martin Grune). I obtained the install files on memory stick or ftp server from them.

The installer is a simple shell script which can be run interactively on the NFS server.  Choosing the custom install option makes it possible to install the compilers to an arbitrary location (i.e. under /common) and select components.  In particular, I chose not to install support for the 32-bit compilation or the Intel MIC architecture but did add in the cluster-related (i.e. BLACS and ScaLAPACK) components.

Note that the installer seems to be intent on slinging the license file in /opt, which is not accessible from the cluster machines.  The solution is to copy the license file to a directory in the install location and set the environment variable INTEL_SUITE_ROOT to that directory in the module file. Updated license files can be simply added to this directory.

Intel provides shell scripts which must be sourced to set the necessary paths for using the compilers and MKL libraries. This was manually converted to a module, although Lmod does provides a helpful script for converting such scripts to modulefiles:

.. code-block:: bash

    $ /common/lmod/lmod/libexec/sh_to_modulefile /common/debian/9.1/core/intel/compilers_and_libraries/linux/bin/compilervars.sh intel64

which could be used as a starting point to create the modulefile.