SYSTEM AND METHOD TO PROVIDE EXPLICIT MULTICAST LOCAL IDENTIFIER ASSIGNMENT FOR PER-PARTITION DEFAULT MULTICAST LOCAL IDENTIFIERS DEFINED AS SUBNET MANAGER POLICY INPUT IN A HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

Systems and methods for providing explicit multicast local identifier assignment for per-partition default multicast local identifiers defined as subnet manager policy input in a high performance computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, an explicit multicast local identifier (MLID) assignment policy can be provided (as, e.g., administrative input) that explicitly defines which MLIDs will be used for which partitions in a subnet. Further, an MLID assignment policy can also define which dedicated MLIDs will be associated with given multicast group identifiers (for example, partition independent MLIDs). By employing such an MLID assignment policy, a new or restarted master subnet manger can observe and verify the MLIDs used for existing partitions, instead of generating new MGID to MLID mappings. In this way, changes in MLID associations for any corresponding MGID can be avoided as a result of master SM restarts or failovers, or any subnet-merge operations.