DRAFT!

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.


The changes will take place on  Wednesday 5 May 2021 09:00 UTC


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
  • TEMS


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 47r2, this set of defaults is ready to handle the data produced, including all the new parameters introduced in this cycle and the update to Tropical Cyclone tracks.

Python 3.8 becomes default

For our Python users, we offer now a more recent version of Python 3.8 with the usual extra modules found on the previous default 3.6 which would be out of official maintenance at the end of the year.

For those still using Python 2, note that this major version of Python reached its end of life on 1st January 2020, If you haven't done moved to Python 3.6 yet, please see Migration to Python 3 for some guidance on where to start. We are providing a latest Python 2.7 for compatibility purposes only.

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:

Codes UI efficiency improvements

CodesUI, the standalone combination of Metview's GRIB and BUFR examiners, provides TBA.

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 may21 tag in modules. For example:

module swap metview/may21
module load Magics/may21
module swap eccodes/may21
module swap python3/may21

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:

module swap metview/old
module load Magics/old
module swap eccodes/old
module swap python3/old


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:

PackageDefault versionRelease notesDownload page
BeforeAfter
CodesUI1.4.11.5.0CodesUI - Change HistoryCodesUI - Releases
ecCodes2.19.12.21.0

Latest news

ecCodes Releases
ecFlow4.17.2

4.17.2

no change

Latest news

ecFlow Releases
ecFlow/55.5.35.6.0

Latest news

ecFlow Releases
Magics4.5.24.6.0Latest NewsMagics Releases
Metview5.7.55.11.0

Change History

Metview Releases
Metview Bundle
ODC0.19.5

0.19.5

no change

--
ODB API0.19.5

0.19.5

no change

Change historyODB 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.

Package

Next default

Notes

aec

https://gitlab.dkrz.de/k202009/libaec/-/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

cdo

https://code.mpimet.mpg.de/news/452

clang

https://releases.llvm.org/9.0.0/tools/clang/docs/ReleaseNotes.html

cmake
https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.16/release/3.16.html
cmor
https://cmor.llnl.gov/news/2019/07/31/cmor3/
ferret
https://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/documentation/version-75-release-notes
fcm
https://github.com/metomi/fcm/blob/master/CHANGES.md
fftw
http://www.fftw.org/release-notes.html
gdal
https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/Release/3.0.2-News
geos
https://trac.osgeo.org/geos/browser/git/NEWS?rev=3.8.1
git
https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/Documentation/RelNotes
gnuparallel
https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/Documentation/RelNotes
gsl
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gsl.git/tree/NEWS
grads
http://cola.gmu.edu/grads/ChangeLog
hdf5
https://support.hdfgroup.org/ftp/HDF5/releases/ReleaseFiles/hdf5-1.10.6-RELEASE.txt
nccmp
https://gitlab.com/remikz/nccmp/-/blob/master/README.md
nco
http://nco.sourceforge.net/ANNOUNCE
netcdf4
https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/entry/netcdf-4-7-4
proj
https://proj.org/news.html#id30
python3
https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.6.html
R

More up-to-date extra R packages

https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/NEWS.html