Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta

What's New in the 2016 Beta

This suite of products brings together exciting new technologies along with improvements to Intel’s existing software development tools:

Big Data Analytics – Easily Build IA Optimized Data Analytics Application
Introducing a new component of Intel® Parallel Studio XE: Intel® Data Analytics Acceleration Library (Intel® DAAL) - a C++ and Java software solution for data analytics. The library provides a set of optimized building blocks that can be used in all stages of the data analytics workflow. These building blocks include data mining methods such as basic statistical moments, Principle Component Analysis, associating rule mining, and outlier detection, as well as supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods such as linear regression, classification, Support Vector Machine, and clustering.
Vectorization – Boost Performance by Utilizing Vector Instructions/Units
Vectorization Advisor identifies new vectorization opportunities as well as improvements to existing vectorization and highlights them in your code. It makes actionable coding recommendations to boost performance and estimates the speedup. Available in the new Intel® Advisor XE 2016 Beta!
Expanded Standards and Features – Scaling Development Efforts Forward
Additional language support for C11 and C++14, Fortran 2008 Submodules and IMPURE ELEMENTAL, and C Interoperability from Fortran 2015, and OpenMP* 4.1 TR 3. New support for SIMD operator use with SSE integer types, Intel® Cilk™ Plus combined Parallel and SIMD loops, OpenMP* 4.0 user-defined reductions (C++ only), feature improvements to Intel’s Language Extensions for Offload, annotated source listings, and a new directory structure. Run-time detection of uninitialized static floating-point variables in Fortran using -init has been extended to include automatic, allocatable and pointer variables and arrays. All available in the Intel® C/C++ and Fortran Compiler 16.0 Beta.
Enhanced OpenMP* analysis and MPI+OpenMP multi-rank analysis
Intel® VTune™ Amplifier 2016 Beta adds OpenMP parallelization inefficiency, imbalance and work sharing analysis to tune for more efficient use of parallel regions. It also now supports multi-rank analysis of MPI compute nodes with or without OpenMP use.
MPI wrappers and Inspector - Executor API for Sparse BLAS
The Intel® Math Kernel Library 11.3 Beta introduces MPI wrappers which support custom MPI* implementations such as Cray* MPI, and IBM* Platform MPI. Additionally, it adds Sparse Matrix vector Multiplication format support: a new two stage API for sparse BLAS level 2 and level 3 routines. This feature provides performance benefits to some applications (e.g. iterative solvers), where a matrix structure analysis done in the first (inspector) stage allows better optimizations for operations in the subsequent (executor) stage.
Get the new Intel® AVX-512 optimization for the computer vision and image processing functions with the Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives (Intel® IPP) 9.0 Beta! Find the new APIs to support external threading for the Intel® IPP functions, and the custom dynamic library building tool, which enables users to build the dynamic library containing the selected Intel® IPP functions.
Scalable MPI Analysis – Fast & Lightweight Analysis for 100K+ Ranks
Intel® Trace Analyzer and Collector add MPI Performance Snapshot feature for easy to use, scalable MPI statistics collection and analysis of large MPI jobs to identify areas for improvement.

A detailed description of the new features in the 2016 Beta products is available in the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta Program: What's New document. You can also view the Release Notes for the suite or individual components.

License Changes in Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016

This Beta release of the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 introduces a major change to the 'named-user' licensing scheme (provided as default for the 2016 Beta licenses). Check out this article for more details on this new functionality as well as a list of special exceptions. Following a thorough Beta testing period, implementation will carry forward into the product release.

Details

This beta program is available for Intel® 64 architecture-based processors for Linux* and Windows*. The Intel Beta compilers, libraries, and viewers for OS* X are also included in this beta program.

During this Beta period, you will be provided access to the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta package – a superset containing all Intel® Software Development Tools. At the time of download, you can select to install individual products (via the "online install" option) or the full suite.

Frequently Asked Questions

A complete list of FAQs regarding the 2016 Beta can be found in the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta Program: Frequently Asked Questions document.

Beta duration and schedule

The beta program officially ends June 23rd, 2015. The beta license provided will expire September 25th, 2015. At the conclusion of the beta program, you will be asked to complete a survey regarding your experience with the beta software.

During the Beta feedback period, we will provide periodic updates. Here is a rough schedule of those milestones:

Early May: Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta Update 1 (including Intel® C/C++ and Fortran compilers, Intel® MKL, Intel® DAAL, Intel® IPP)
Early June: Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta Update 1 (including Intel® C/C++ and Fortran compilers, Intel® MKL, Intel® DAAL, Intel® IPP, Intel® VTune Amplifier, Intel® Inspector XE, and Intel® Advisor XE)
End of June: Beta closes and post-beta surveys are sent

Note that once you register for the Beta, you will be notified automatically when updates are made available.

Support

Technical support will be provided via Intel® Premier Customer Support. The Intel® Registration Center will be used to provide updates to the component products during this beta period.

How to enroll in the Beta program

Complete the pre-beta survey at the registration link

Information collected from the pre-beta survey will be used to evaluate beta testing coverage. Here is a link to the Intel Privacy Policy.
Keep the beta product serial number provided for future reference
After registration, you will be taken to the Intel Registration Center to download the product
After registration, you will be able to download all available beta products at any time by returning to the Intel Registration Center

Note: At the end of the beta program you should uninstall the beta product software.

Beta Webinars

Want to know more about the 2016 Beta features in the Intel® Parallel Studio XE? Attend one of these webinars to learn more.

Times indicated are Pacific time. PST: Standard (UTC/GMT -8 hours), PDT: Daylight Savings (UTC/GMT -7 hours)

Date	Title	Description	Presenter	REGISTER
Apr 14 9:00 A.M. Pacific	Vectorize or Die - unlock code modernization performance secrets	The free ride of faster performance with increased clock speeds is long gone. Software must be both threaded and vectorized to fully utilize today’s and tomorrow’s hardware. But modernization is not without cost. Not all threading or vectorization designs are worthwhile. How do you choose which designs to implement without disrupting ongoing development? Learn how data driven threading and vectorization design can yield long term performance growth with less risk and more impact.	Kevin O'Leary	Click here to register
Apr 15 9:00 A.M. Pacific	What’s New in the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta	Join the technical experts at Intel as they provide you with details on the new features in the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta releases that access the newest Intel multicore and manycore coprocessors. This technical presentation will cover new Intel® Compiler Beta features for the most recent standards: OpenMP* 4.1, MPI-3.x, Fortran 2008 and 2015, C11, and C++ 14 running on the newest Linux, Windows, and OS X* operating systems. Intel® Advisor XE adds new Vectorization Advisor feature to identify areas of code for vectorization opportunities. Intel® Trace Analyzer and Collector adds the MPI Performance Snapshot feature for easy-to-use, scalable MPI statistics collection and analysis of large MPI jobs to identify areas for improvement. Several of our Intel® Software Development tools add improved support for hybrid (MPI and OpenMP*) applications.	J.D. Patel and Gergana Slavova	Click here to register
May 5 9:00 A.M. Pacific	Fast, light-weight, scalable MPI performance analysis	Developers of modern HPC applications face a challenge when scaling out their hybrid (MPI/OpenMP) applications. Cluster sizes continue to grow, the amount of analysis data collected can easily become overwhelming when going from 10s to 1000s of ranks and it’s tough to identify which are the key metrics to track. There is a need for a visual tool that aggregates the performance data in a simple and intuitive way, provides advice on next optimizations steps, and hones in on performance issues. In this webinar, we’ll discuss a brand new tool that helps quickly gather and analyze statistics up to 100,000 ranks. We’ll give examples of the type of information provided by the MPI Performance Snapshot including memory and counter usage, MPI and OpenMP imbalance analysis, and total communication vs. computation time. We’ll feature screenshots of the tool running in real-time and showcase some of its runtime and filtering capabilities.	Gergana Slavova	Click here to register
May 6 9:00 A.M. Pacific	Latest Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE Improvements	Discover improvements to Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE’s OpenMP analysis aimed at helping you achieve maximum scalability. Next, find out how Intel VTune Amplifier XE will support analysis of MPI+OpenMP hybrid applications. Explore Intel VTune Amplifier XE’s profiling capabilities for Intel® HD graphics with OpenCL* and Intel® Media Server SDK. Finally, see the latest ease-of-use improvements.	Dave Anderson	Click here to register
May 13 9:00 A.M. Pacific	What’s New in Intel® Fortran 16.0 for Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016	This session will cover new features in the Intel® Fortran compiler version 16, part of Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016. Topics include new features from Fortran standards, new OpenMP* features and changes for users of Microsoft Visual Studio*.	Steve Lionel	Click here to register
May 20 9:00 A.M. Pacific	New C/C++ Language Features in Intel® C/C++ Compiler 16.0	This talk will cover new features in Intel® C/C++ Compiler 16.0 as part of the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 including support for SSE integer type operators and new C11 and C++14 features. It will also discuss how to use feature macros (which are currently part of a technical report written by the C++ standards committee) for portability.	Judy Ward	Click here to register
June 3 9:00 A.M. Pacific	Introducing Intel® Cluster Checker 3.0	This session will cover the primary features and functionality of the newest component in Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016. The Intel® Cluster Checker is a robust cluster diagnostics tool that helps make high-performance computing (HPC) clusters practical for sites that don’t have previous cluster experience or in-depth expertise. Topics include: an introduction with overview of primary features and functionality, and live use-case demonstrations.	Christopher Heller	Click here to register

This is a small subset of our Technical Webinar series. For more webinars and to view the archives, visit the main Intel Software Tools Technical Webinar Series page.

Special Features and Known Issues

This section contains information on known issues (plus associated fixes) and special features of the 2016 Beta versions of the Intel® Parallel Studio XE tools. Check back often for updates.

What is Vectorization Advisor and How do I get it?

Vectorization Advisor is an analysis tool that lets you identify if loops utilize modern SIMD instructions, what prevents vectorization, what is the performance efficiency of your application, and how to increase it. Vectorization Advisor shows compiler optimization reports in a user-friendly way and extends them with multiple other metrics, like loop trip counts, CPU time, memory access patterns and recommendations for optimization. This new functionality, along with the Threading Advisor, comprise the two major features of the Intel® Advisor XE 2016 product.

Get started with the new Vectorization Advisor feature by reading the Getting Started Guide. For more technical details and use cases, check out the Vectorization Advisor FAQ.

New Directory Layout for Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016

In order to provide a common install directory that supports installation of multiple updates and eliminate duplicate content across those updates, Intel Parallel Studio XE 2016 adopts a new directory layout for its compiler and libraries components. The new layout also eliminates duplicate compiler and libraries component bits from multiple installations of the Intel® Software Development Tools products. It will remain stable for the next major release. Check out more details by visiting the associated article.

Known Issue: RPM Installation Failure Due to Dependency Errors

When installing the Linux* packages via RPM, the installation will fail due to dependency errors. The team is working on a resolution but, until that time, get more details on how to work around this problem.

Known Issue: Uninstalling Intel Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta may remove installation directory if symlinked

If you install to a directory that is a symbolic link to another directory, upon uninstalling Intel Parallel Studio XE 2016 beta, the symbolic link will be deleted if the user (or root for root/sudo installs) has permission to do so. This problem will only occur with user installations, or with root or sudo installations on an operating system without rpm support, such as Debian* or Ubuntu*. We're working to resolve this issue in one of our upcoming Beta updates. For now, see this article for more details and a workaround.

Known Issue: Microsoft* Visual Studio* Fortran build dependency analyzer doesn't understand submodules

The build dependency analyzer in Microsoft* Visual Studio* does not yet understand submodules and will do unnecessary recompiles. The team is working on providing a fix. In the meantime, visit the following forum post for more details of the Intel Fortran compiler Beta features.

Next Steps

Review the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta What's New document and FAQ, or check out the Release Notes
Register for the Beta program and install the Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2016 Beta product(s)
Try it out and share your experience with us by submitting an issue via the Intel® Premier Customer Support web portal

Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Copyright © 2015, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft Windows* (XP, Vista, 7)

Microsoft Windows* 8.x