326 research outputs found
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On the conditions for efficient interoperability with threads: An experience with PGAS languages using Cray communication domains
Today's high performance systems are typically built from shared memory nodes connected by a high speed network. That architecture, combined with the trend towards less memory per core, encourages programmers to use a mixture of message passing and multithreaded programming. Unfortunately, the advantages of using threads for in-node programming are hindered by their inability to efficiently communicate between nodes. In this work, we identify some of the performance problems that arise in such hybrid programming environments and characterize conditions needed to achieve high communication performance for multiple threads: addressability of targets, separability of communication paths, and full direct reachability to targets. Using the GASNet communication layer on the Cray XC30 as our experimental platform, we show how to satisfy these conditions. We also discuss how satisfying these conditions is influenced by the communication abstraction, implementation constraints, and the interconnect messaging capabilities. To evaluate these ideas, we compare the communication performance of a thread-based node runtime to a process-based runtime. Without our GASNet extensions, thread communication is significantly slower than processes - up to 21x slower. Once the implementation is modified to address each of our conditions, the two runtimes have comparable communication performance. This allows programmers to more easily mix models like OpenMP, CILK, or pthreads with a GASNet-based model like UPC, with the associated performance, convenience and interoperability advantages that come from using threads within a node. © 2014 ACM
Improving the scalability of parallel N-body applications with an event driven constraint based execution model
The scalability and efficiency of graph applications are significantly
constrained by conventional systems and their supporting programming models.
Technology trends like multicore, manycore, and heterogeneous system
architectures are introducing further challenges and possibilities for emerging
application domains such as graph applications. This paper explores the space
of effective parallel execution of ephemeral graphs that are dynamically
generated using the Barnes-Hut algorithm to exemplify dynamic workloads. The
workloads are expressed using the semantics of an Exascale computing execution
model called ParalleX. For comparison, results using conventional execution
model semantics are also presented. We find improved load balancing during
runtime and automatic parallelism discovery improving efficiency using the
advanced semantics for Exascale computing.Comment: 11 figure
C Language Extensions for Hybrid CPU/GPU Programming with StarPU
Modern platforms used for high-performance computing (HPC) include machines
with both general-purpose CPUs, and "accelerators", often in the form of
graphical processing units (GPUs). StarPU is a C library to exploit such
platforms. It provides users with ways to define "tasks" to be executed on CPUs
or GPUs, along with the dependencies among them, and by automatically
scheduling them over all the available processing units. In doing so, it also
relieves programmers from the need to know the underlying architecture details:
it adapts to the available CPUs and GPUs, and automatically transfers data
between main memory and GPUs as needed. While StarPU's approach is successful
at addressing run-time scheduling issues, being a C library makes for a poor
and error-prone programming interface. This paper presents an effort started in
2011 to promote some of the concepts exported by the library as C language
constructs, by means of an extension of the GCC compiler suite. Our main
contribution is the design and implementation of language extensions that map
to StarPU's task programming paradigm. We argue that the proposed extensions
make it easier to get started with StarPU,eliminate errors that can occur when
using the C library, and help diagnose possible mistakes. We conclude on future
work
Distributed-Memory Breadth-First Search on Massive Graphs
This chapter studies the problem of traversing large graphs using the
breadth-first search order on distributed-memory supercomputers. We consider
both the traditional level-synchronous top-down algorithm as well as the
recently discovered direction optimizing algorithm. We analyze the performance
and scalability trade-offs in using different local data structures such as CSR
and DCSC, enabling in-node multithreading, and graph decompositions such as 1D
and 2D decomposition.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1104.451
Exascale machines require new programming paradigms and runtimes
Extreme scale parallel computing systems will have tens of thousands of optionally accelerator-equiped nodes with hundreds of cores each, as well as deep memory hierarchies and complex interconnect topologies. Such Exascale systems will provide hardware parallelism at multiple levels and will be energy constrained. Their extreme scale and the rapidly deteriorating reliablity of their hardware components means that Exascale systems will exhibit low mean-time-between-failure values. Furthermore, existing programming models already require heroic programming and optimisation efforts to achieve high efficiency on current supercomputers. Invariably, these efforts are platform-specific and non-portable. In this paper we will explore the shortcomings of existing programming models and runtime systems for large scale computing systems. We then propose and discuss important features of programming paradigms and runtime system to deal with large scale computing systems with a special focus on data-intensive applications and resilience. Finally, we also discuss code sustainability issues and propose several software metrics that are of paramount importance for code development for large scale computing systems
Automatic mapping of parallel applications on multicore architectures using the Servet benchmark suite
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Computers & Electrical Engineering. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compeleceng.2011.12.007[Abstract] Servet is a suite of benchmarks focused on detecting a set of parameters with high influence on the overall performance of multicore systems. These parameters can be used for autotuning codes to increase their performance on multicore clusters. Although Servet has been proved to detect accurately cache hierarchies, bandwidths and bottlenecks in memory accesses, as well as the communication overhead among cores, up to now the impact of the use of this information on application performance optimization has not been assessed. This paper presents a novel algorithm that automatically uses Servet for mapping parallel applications on multicore systems and analyzes its impact on three testbeds using three different parallel programming models: message-passing, shared memory and partitioned global address space (PGAS). Our results show that a suitable mapping policy based on the data provided by this tool can significantly improve the performance of parallel applications without source code modification.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación; TIN2010-16735Ministerio de Educación; FPU; AP2008-01578Xunta de Galicia; INCITE08PXIB105161P
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