The LAPACK for clusters project: an example of self adapting numerical software

This article describes the context, design, and recent development of the LAPACK for clusters (LFC) project (LAPACK stands for Linear Algebra PACKage). It has been developed in the framework of self-adapting numerical software (SANS) since we believe such an approach can deliver the convenience and ease of use of existing sequential environments bundled with the power and versatility of highly-tuned parallel codes that execute on clusters. Accomplishing this task is far from trivial as we argue in the paper by presenting pertinent case studies and possible usage scenarios.