Where is the V-IPU software?

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I was reading the Graphcore documentation and came across the V-IPU software. The documentation says I can download it from the Graphcore software download portal, however I don't see it anywhere among the downloadable software (link below):

https://downloads.graphcore.ai/

I checked whether the Poplar SDK contains it but it doesn't, and it's not already installed on the machine I'm using (DSS8440 IPU SERVER). On the other hand, I'm able to run PopTorch without it, so I'm guessing V-IPU doesn't exist anymore? If not, where can I find it?

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1 Answers

Graphcore's Virtual-IPU (V-IPU) is a software layer for allocating and configuring Graphcore IPUs in IPU-Machine and IPU-POD (a collection of interconnected IPU-Machines) systems, as described e.g. in the Introduction section of the V-IPU user guide. As you are using a Dell DSS 8440 IPU server and not an IPU-M or an IPU-POD system, V-IPU is not needed to run your programs on the IPU, as you have already verified yourself, and it is not visible to you on the Downloads portal either. You only need Poplar SDK to get going on the DSS 8440 server.

I'll add a few more details about these different systems, to clarify why V-IPU software is not needed with the IPU server you're currently using. The Dell DSS 8440 IPU server features eight Graphcore dual-IPU C2 cards, which are connected via a high speed PCIe switched fabric. On the other hand, in IPU-Ms and IPU-POD systems the IPU devices are accessed using IPU over Fabric (IPUoF) network connectivity, based on 100G RDMA over converged Ethernet (RoCE). The V-IPU software provides the allocation, provisioning and monitoring of IPU chips and related infrastructure for machine-learning Poplar-based workloads in the IPU-POD. The IPU-specific part of the V-IPU software can run on a single IPU-Machine, when used in direct attach mode, or on a server in an IPU-POD.

You can read more details on IPU-POD systems in this section of Graphcore's documentation.

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