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XaaS Containers: Performance-Portable Representation with Source and IR Containers
DescriptionHPC systems and cloud data centers are converging, and containers are becoming the default software deployment method. While containers simplify software management, they face significant performance challenges: they must sacrifice hardware-specific optimizations to achieve portability. Although HPC containers can use runtime hooks to access optimized libraries and devices, they are limited by ABI compatibility and cannot reverse the effects of early-stage compilation decisions. XaaS containers proposed a vision of performance-portable containers, and we present a practical realization with Source and Intermediate Representation (IR) containers. We delay performance-critical decisions until the target system specification is known. We analyze specialization mechanisms in HPC software and propose a new LLM-assisted method for their automatic discovery. By examining the compilation pipeline, we develop a methodology to build containers optimized for target architectures at deployment time. Our prototype demonstrates that new XaaS containers combine the convenience of containerization with the performance benefits of system-specialized builds.
Authors
Event Type
Paper
TimeTuesday, 18 November 20253:30pm - 3:52pm CST
Location275
BP
State of the Practice
System Software and Cloud Computing
Livestreamed
Recorded
TP