4. Create Pod and use IPU

You can access the IPU through the Kubernetes resource types, such as Deployment or Pod.

Create a configuration file: test.yaml:

• Kubernetes Pod example

  apiVersion: v1
  kind: Pod
  metadata:
    name: ipu-test-1
  
  spec:
    containers:
    - name: demo-ipu-test
      image: graphcore/pytorch:latest 
      command: ["/bin/bash", "-c", "--"]
      args: ["sleep infinity & wait"]
      resources:
        limits:
          c600.graphcore.ai/ipu: "1" # Number of IPUs allocated to the Pod
  

  pod-test.yaml (rename to test.yaml)

• Deployment example

  apiVersion: apps/v1
  kind: Deployment
  metadata:
    name: ipu-test
    namespace: default
    labels:
      app: app-test
  spec:
    replicas: 1
    selector:
      matchLabels:
        app: app-test
    template:
      metadata:
        labels:
          app: app-test
      spec:
        containers:
        - name: demo-ipu-test
          image: graphcore/pytorch:latest 
          command: ["/bin/bash", "-c", "--"]
          args: ["sleep infinity & wait"]
          resources:
            limits:
              c600.graphcore.ai/ipu: "1"
  

  deployment-test.yaml (rename to test.yaml)

The replica scaling and rollback functions of deployment are supported. Run the following command to create a Deployment or Pod:

$ kubectl apply -f test.yaml

The following command checks whether the Pod runs successfully. The expected output is shown:

$ kubectl get pod

NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
ipu-test-1 1/1 Running 0 4d

Run the following command again:

$ kubectl describe nodes

You will find that the number of allocated IPUs has changed from 0 to 1.

Allocated resources:
  (Total limits may be over 100 percent, i.e., overcommitted.)
  Resource Requests Limits
  -------- -------- ------
  cpu 1 (2%) 0 (0%)
  memory 140Mi (0%) 340Mi (0%)
  ephemeral-storage 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
  hugepages-1Gi 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
  hugepages-2Mi 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
  c600.graphcore.ai/ipu 1 1

 ...

This indicates that the Kubernetes cluster can schedule and use IPU devices with the Kubernetes IPU device plugin.