Havens: Explicit Reliable Memory Regions for HPC Applications

Supporting error resilience in future exascale-class supercomputing systems is a critical challenge. Due to transistor scaling trends and increasing memory density, scientific simulations are expected to experience more interruptions caused by transient errors in the system memory. Existing hardware-based detection and recovery techniques will be inadequate to manage the presence of high memory fault rates. In this paper we propose a partial memory protection scheme based on region-based memory management. We define the concept of regions called havens that provide fault protection for program objects. We provide reliability for the regions through a software-based parity protection mechanism. Our approach enables critical program objects to be placed in these havens. The fault coverage provided by our approach is application agnostic, unlike algorithm-based fault tolerance techniques.Comment: 2016 IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Conference (HPEC '16), September 2016, Waltham, MA, US

MICSIM : Concept, Developments and Applications of a PC-Microsimulation Model for Research and Teaching

It is the growing societal interest about the individual and its behaviour in our and 'modern' societies which is asking for microanalyses about the individual situation. In order to allow these microanalyses on a quantitative and empirically based level microsimulation models were developed and increasingly used for economic and social policy impact analyses. Though microsimulation is known and applied (mainly by experts), an easy to use and powerful PC microsimulation model is hard to find. The overall aim of this study and of MICSIM - A PC Microsimulation Model is to describe and offer such a user-friendly and powerful general microsimulation model for (almost) any PC, to support the impact microanalyses both in applied research and teaching. Above all, MICSIM is a general microdata handler for a wide range of typical microanalysis requirements. This paper presents the concept, developments and applications of MICSIM. After some brief remarks on microsimulation characteristics in general, the concept and substantive domains of MICSIM: the simulation, the adjustment and aging, and the evaluation of microdata, are described by its mode of operation in principle. The realisations and developments of MICSIM then are portrayed by the different versions of the computer program. Some MICSIM applications and experiences in research and teaching are following with concluding remarks.Economic and Social Policy Analyses, Microsimulation (dynamic and static), Simulation, Adjustment and Evaluation of Microdata, PC Computer Program for Microanalyses in General