Facilitating Easier Access to FPGAs in the Heterogeneous Cloud Ecosystems

With FPGAs being increasingly integrated into existing software-based heterogeneous cloud environments, novel evaluation mechanisms are required to reveal the energyperformance trade-offs of accelerators (FPGAs, GPUs, etc) using high-level heterogeneous programming environments. For FPGAs, this also requires reconsideration of scheduling policies and reconfiguration methods with an aim to integrate software-based approaches as well as optimizations for broader workload sizes. Proposed considerations are evaluated using various configuration techniques for a number of applications

Estimating the Power Consumption of Heterogeneous Devices when performing AI Inference

Modern-day life is driven by electronic devices connected to the internet. The emerging research field of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has become popular, just as there has been a steady increase in the number of connected devices. Since many of these devices are utilised to perform CV tasks, it is essential to understand their power consumption against performance. We report the power consumption profile and analysis of the NVIDIA Jetson Nano board while performing object classification. The authors present an extensive analysis regarding power consumption per frame and the output in frames per second using YOLOv5 models. The results show that the YOLOv5n outperforms other YOLOV5 variants in terms of throughput (i.e. 12.34 fps) and low power consumption (i.e. 0.154 mWh/frame)

Optimización del rendimiento y la eficiencia energética en sistemas masivamente paralelos

RESUMEN Los sistemas heterogéneos son cada vez más relevantes, debido a sus capacidades de rendimiento y eficiencia energética, estando presentes en todo tipo de plataformas de cómputo, desde dispositivos embebidos y servidores, hasta nodos HPC de grandes centros de datos. Su complejidad hace que sean habitualmente usados bajo el paradigma de tareas y el modelo de programación host-device. Esto penaliza fuertemente el aprovechamiento de los aceleradores y el consumo energético del sistema, además de dificultar la adaptación de las aplicaciones. La co-ejecución permite que todos los dispositivos cooperen para computar el mismo problema, consumiendo menos tiempo y energía. No obstante, los programadores deben encargarse de toda la gestión de los dispositivos, la distribución de la carga y la portabilidad del código entre sistemas, complicando notablemente su programación. Esta tesis ofrece contribuciones para mejorar el rendimiento y la eficiencia energética en estos sistemas masivamente paralelos. Se realizan propuestas que abordan objetivos generalmente contrapuestos: se mejora la usabilidad y la programabilidad, a la vez que se garantiza una mayor abstracción y extensibilidad del sistema, y al mismo tiempo se aumenta el rendimiento, la escalabilidad y la eficiencia energética. Para ello, se proponen dos motores de ejecución con enfoques completamente distintos. EngineCL, centrado en OpenCL y con una API de alto nivel, favorece la máxima compatibilidad entre todo tipo de dispositivos y proporciona un sistema modular extensible. Su versatilidad permite adaptarlo a entornos para los que no fue concebido, como aplicaciones con ejecuciones restringidas por tiempo o simuladores HPC de dinámica molecular, como el utilizado en un centro de investigación internacional. Considerando las tendencias industriales y enfatizando la aplicabilidad profesional, CoexecutorRuntime proporciona un sistema flexible centrado en C++/SYCL que dota de soporte a la co-ejecución a la tecnología oneAPI. Este runtime acerca a los programadores al dominio del problema, posibilitando la explotación de estrategias dinámicas adaptativas que mejoran la eficiencia en todo tipo de aplicaciones.ABSTRACT Heterogeneous systems are becoming increasingly relevant, due to their performance and energy efficiency capabilities, being present in all types of computing platforms, from embedded devices and servers to HPC nodes in large data centers. Their complexity implies that they are usually used under the task paradigm and the host-device programming model. This strongly penalizes accelerator utilization and system energy consumption, as well as making it difficult to adapt applications. Co-execution allows all devices to simultaneously compute the same problem, cooperating to consume less time and energy. However, programmers must handle all device management, workload distribution and code portability between systems, significantly complicating their programming. This thesis offers contributions to improve performance and energy efficiency in these massively parallel systems. The proposals address the following generally conflicting objectives: usability and programmability are improved, while ensuring enhanced system abstraction and extensibility, and at the same time performance, scalability and energy efficiency are increased. To achieve this, two runtime systems with completely different approaches are proposed. EngineCL, focused on OpenCL and with a high-level API, provides an extensible modular system and favors maximum compatibility between all types of devices. Its versatility allows it to be adapted to environments for which it was not originally designed, including applications with time-constrained executions or molecular dynamics HPC simulators, such as the one used in an international research center. Considering industrial trends and emphasizing professional applicability, CoexecutorRuntime provides a flexible C++/SYCL-based system that provides co-execution support for oneAPI technology. This runtime brings programmers closer to the problem domain, enabling the exploitation of dynamic adaptive strategies that improve efficiency in all types of applications.Funding: This PhD has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU16/03299 grant), the Spanish Science and Technology Commission under contracts TIN2016-76635-C2-2-R and PID2019-105660RB-C22. This work has also been partially supported by the Mont-Blanc 3: European Scalable and Power Efficient HPC Platform based on Low-Power Embedded Technology project (G.A. No. 671697) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (H2020 Programme). Some activities have also been funded by the Spanish Science and Technology Commission under contract TIN2016-81840-REDT (CAPAP-H6 network). The Integration II: Hybrid programming models of Chapter 4 has been partially performed under the Project HPC-EUROPA3 (INFRAIA-2016-1-730897), with the support of the EC Research Innovation Action under the H2020 Programme. In particular, the author gratefully acknowledges the support of the SPMT Department of the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS)

Estimating the power consumption of heterogeneous devices when performing AI inference

Modern-day life is driven by electronic devices connected to the internet. The emerging research field of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has become popular, just as there has been a steady increase in the number of connected devices. Although these devices are utilised to perform Computer Vision (CV) tasks, it is essential to understand their power consumption against performance. We report the power consumption profile and analysis of the NVIDIA Jetson Nano board while performing object classification. The authors present an extensive analysis regarding power consumption per frame and the output in frames per second using YOLOv5 models. The results show that the YOLOv5n outperforms other YOLOV5 variants in terms of throughput (i.e. 12.34 fps) and low power consumption (i.e. 0.154 mWh/frame)

Technical Research Priorities for Big Data

To drive innovation and competitiveness, organisations need to foster the development and broad adoption of data technologies, value-adding use cases and sustainable business models. Enabling an effective data ecosystem requires overcoming several technical challenges associated with the cost and complexity of management, processing, analysis and utilisation of data. This chapter details a community-driven initiative to identify and characterise the key technical research priorities for research and development in data technologies. The chapter examines the systemic and structured methodology used to gather inputs from over 200 stakeholder organisations. The result of the process identified five key technical research priorities in the areas of data management, data processing, data analytics, data visualisation and user interactions, and data protection, together with 28 sub-level challenges. The process also highlighted the important role of data standardisation, data engineering and DevOps for Big Data

Modern computing: Vision and challenges

Over the past six decades, the computing systems field has experienced significant transformations, profoundly impacting society with transformational developments, such as the Internet and the commodification of computing. Underpinned by technological advancements, computer systems, far from being static, have been continuously evolving and adapting to cover multifaceted societal niches. This has led to new paradigms such as cloud, fog, edge computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), which offer fresh economic and creative opportunities. Nevertheless, this rapid change poses complex research challenges, especially in maximizing potential and enhancing functionality. As such, to maintain an economical level of performance that meets ever-tighter requirements, one must understand the drivers of new model emergence and expansion, and how contemporary challenges differ from past ones. To that end, this article investigates and assesses the factors influencing the evolution of computing systems, covering established systems and architectures as well as newer developments, such as serverless computing, quantum computing, and on-device AI on edge devices. Trends emerge when one traces technological trajectory, which includes the rapid obsolescence of frameworks due to business and technical constraints, a move towards specialized systems and models, and varying approaches to centralized and decentralized control. This comprehensive review of modern computing systems looks ahead to the future of research in the field, highlighting key challenges and emerging trends, and underscoring their importance in cost-effectively driving technological progress