ECMWF is updating the default versions of its software packages and libraries used across all user platforms at the centre as part of the regular update cycle.
When?
The changes will take place on Wednesday 3 June 2020 10:00 UTC
What platforms are affected?
All user platforms at the centre will see their default additional software stack updated:
- All clusters in our High Performance Computing Facility, mainly CCA and CCB
- ECGATE
- Linux Clusters
- Linux Desktops
Do I need to do anything?
We strongly recommend you test that your programs, scripts and suites work with the new versions of any software or library affected before the change happens.
Table of contents
Highlights
Software stack ready for next operational IFS cycle
With the upcoming Implementation of IFS Cycle 47r1, this set of defaults is ready to handle the data produced, including all the new parameters introduced in this cycle.
No Python 2 upgrade
As Python 2 reached its end of life on 1st January 2020, no newer versions of the Python 2 installations and their associated subpackages such as numpy and others. Older versions remain available for those who haven't migrated to Python 3. If you haven't done so yet, please see Migration to Python 3 for some guidance on where to start.
Metview improvements
Metview, ECMWF's interactive and batch software for manipulation and plotting of data, brings a number of new features and improvements, such as:
- easier access to the layer metadata in the interactive plot window
- a new set of pre-defined areas in the Geographical View icon
- improvements to the GRIB and BUFR examiners (and hence also in CodesUI)
- improvements to the existing thermodynamic functions
- plus a new function to compute relative humidity from temperature and dewpoint, a new way to control the font sizes in the user interface
Codes UI efficiency improvements
CodesUI, the standalone combination of Metview's GRIB and BUFR examiners, provides a highly improved initial BUFR message scan (about 50-100 times faster than before), a filter bar for the GRIB namespace list and extra information about BUFR elements.
A lot of other bugfixes and improvements
All the new versions, both ECMWF and 3rd Party, come with a number of bug fixes and improvements. You may see the Change logs for any individual package or library in the list below if you want to have all the details.
How to use the new versions for testing BEFORE the update
Users are strongly encouraged to test their software applications and data processing chain with the new versions of the various software packages before the date of the change to the default versions.
The new versions of the software packages can be selected by using the jun20 tag in modules. For example:
|
How to revert to the old versions in case of problems AFTER the update
Users that experience problems with the new default software packages after the update will be able to revert to the old default versions. These can be selected with the commands:
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Please let ECMWF know if you need to revert to the old version of any of the packages after the update of the defaults has taken place.
Change list
ECMWF Software
This table summarises the changes in the version of the different packages:
| Package | Default version | Release notes | Download page | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | After | |||
| CodesUI | 1.2.7 | 1.3.1 | CodesUI - Change History | CodesUI - Releases |
| ecCodes | 2.14.0 | 2.17.1 | ecCodes Releases | |
| ecFlow | 4.17.0 | 4.17.2 | ecFlow Releases | |
| Magics | 4.1.0 | 4.3.3 | Latest News | Magics Releases |
| Metview | 5.7.5 | 5.8.3 | Metview Releases Metview Bundle | |
| ODB API | 0.19.1 | 0.19.4 | Change history | ODB API Release |
ecCodes is now the official ECMWF encoder and decoder for GRIB and BUFR formats. It supersedes GRIB-API, for the GRIB format, and EMOSLIB, for the BUFR. If you still use any of those, we encourage you to migrate to ecCodes.
Please see the Release notes for full details of the changes implemented in each package.
Third-party software
Some of the versions in this list may already be the default for a specific package on a certain platform, so no changes will be made in those cases. After the update, all platforms will have the same defaults for all these packages.