Controlling and Assessing Correlations of Cost Matrices in Heterogeneous Scheduling

International audienceThis paper considers the problem of allocating independent tasks to unrelated machines such as to minimize the maximum completion time. Testing heuristics for this problem requires the generation of cost matrices that specify the execution time of each task on each machine. Numerous studies showed that the task and machine heterogeneities belong to the properties impacting heuristics performance the most. This study focuses on orthogonal properties, the average correlations between each pair of rows and each pair of columns, which is a proximity measure with uniform instances 1. Cost matrices generated with a novel generation method show the effect of these correlations on the performance of several heuristics from the literature. In particular, EFT performance depends on whether the tasks are more correlated than the machines and HLPT performs the best when both correlations are close to one

Scheduling and Tuning Kernels for High-performance on Heterogeneous Processor Systems

Accelerated parallel computing techniques using devices such as GPUs and Xeon Phis (along with CPUs) have proposed promising solutions of extending the cutting edge of high-performance computer systems. A significant performance improvement can be achieved when suitable workloads are handled by the accelerator. Traditional CPUs can handle those workloads not well suited for accelerators. Combination of multiple types of processors in a single computer system is referred to as a heterogeneous system. This dissertation addresses tuning and scheduling issues in heterogeneous systems. The first section presents work on tuning scientific workloads on three different types of processors: multi-core CPU, Xeon Phi massively parallel processor, and NVIDIA GPU; common tuning methods and platform-specific tuning techniques are presented. Then, analysis is done to demonstrate the performance characteristics of the heterogeneous system on different input data. This section of the dissertation is part of the GeauxDock project, which prototyped a few state-of-art bioinformatics algorithms, and delivered a fast molecular docking program. The second section of this work studies the performance model of the GeauxDock computing kernel. Specifically, the work presents an extraction of features from the input data set and the target systems, and then uses various regression models to calculate the perspective computation time. This helps understand why a certain processor is faster for certain sets of tasks. It also provides the essential information for scheduling on heterogeneous systems. In addition, this dissertation investigates a high-level task scheduling framework for heterogeneous processor systems in which, the pros and cons of using different heterogeneous processors can complement each other. Thus a higher performance can be achieve on heterogeneous computing systems. A new scheduling algorithm with four innovations is presented: Ranked Opportunistic Balancing (ROB), Multi-subject Ranking (MR), Multi-subject Relative Ranking (MRR), and Automatic Small Tasks Rearranging (ASTR). The new algorithm consistently outperforms previously proposed algorithms with better scheduling results, lower computational complexity, and more consistent results over a range of performance prediction errors. Finally, this work extends the heterogeneous task scheduling algorithm to handle power capping feature. It demonstrates that a power-aware scheduler significantly improves the power efficiencies and saves the energy consumption. This suggests that, in addition to performance benefits, heterogeneous systems may have certain advantages on overall power efficiency

Learning and Management for Internet-of-Things: Accounting for Adaptivity and Scalability

Internet-of-Things (IoT) envisions an intelligent infrastructure of networked smart devices offering task-specific monitoring and control services. The unique features of IoT include extreme heterogeneity, massive number of devices, and unpredictable dynamics partially due to human interaction. These call for foundational innovations in network design and management. Ideally, it should allow efficient adaptation to changing environments, and low-cost implementation scalable to massive number of devices, subject to stringent latency constraints. To this end, the overarching goal of this paper is to outline a unified framework for online learning and management policies in IoT through joint advances in communication, networking, learning, and optimization. From the network architecture vantage point, the unified framework leverages a promising fog architecture that enables smart devices to have proximity access to cloud functionalities at the network edge, along the cloud-to-things continuum. From the algorithmic perspective, key innovations target online approaches adaptive to different degrees of nonstationarity in IoT dynamics, and their scalable model-free implementation under limited feedback that motivates blind or bandit approaches. The proposed framework aspires to offer a stepping stone that leads to systematic designs and analysis of task-specific learning and management schemes for IoT, along with a host of new research directions to build on.Comment: Submitted on June 15 to Proceeding of IEEE Special Issue on Adaptive and Scalable Communication Network

VI Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods: Book of Abstracts

The VI Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods (WCDANM) is going to be held on June 27-29, 2019, in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Covilhã, Portugal and it is a unique opportunity to disseminate scientific research related to the areas of Mathematics in general, with particular relevance to the areas of Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods in theoretical and/or practical field, using new techniques, giving especial emphasis to applications in Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology, Engineering, Industry, Environmental Sciences, Finance, Insurance, Management and Administration. The meeting will provide a forum for discussion and debate of ideas with interest to the scientific community in general. With this meeting new scientific collaborations among colleagues, namely new collaborations in Masters and PhD projects are expected. The event is open to the entire scientific community (with or without communication/poster)

Dynamic priority allocation via restless bandit marginal productivity indices

This paper surveys recent work by the author on the theoretical and algorithmic aspects of restless bandit indexation as well as on its application to a variety of problems involving the dynamic allocation of priority to multiple stochastic projects. The main aim is to present ideas and methods in an accessible form that can be of use to researchers addressing problems of such a kind. Besides building on the rich literature on bandit problems, our approach draws on ideas from linear programming, economics, and multi-objective optimization. In particular, it was motivated to address issues raised in the seminal work of Whittle (Restless bandits: activity allocation in a changing world. In: Gani J. (ed.) A Celebration of Applied Probability, J. Appl. Probab., vol. 25A, Applied Probability Trust, Sheffield, pp. 287-298, 1988) where he introduced the index for restless bandits that is the starting point of this work. Such an index, along with previously proposed indices and more recent extensions, is shown to be unified through the intuitive concept of ``marginal productivity index'' (MPI), which measures the marginal productivity of work on a project at each of its states. In a multi-project setting, MPI policies are economically sound, as they dynamically allocate higher priority to those projects where work appears to be currently more productive. Besides being tractable and widely applicable, a growing body of computational evidence indicates that such index policies typically achieve a near-optimal performance and substantially outperform benchmark policies derived from conventional approaches.Comment: 7 figure

Faithful Performance Prediction of a Dynamic Task-Based Runtime System for Heterogeneous Multi-Core Architectures

International audienceSUMMARY Multi-core architectures comprising several GPUs have become mainstream in the field of High-Performance Computing. However, obtaining the maximum performance of such heterogeneous machines is challenging as it requires to carefully offload computations and manage data movements between the different processing units. The most promising and successful approaches so far build on task-based runtimes that abstract the machine and rely on opportunistic scheduling algorithms. As a consequence, the problem gets shifted to choosing the task granularity, task graph structure, and optimizing the scheduling strategies. Trying different combinations of these different alternatives is also itself a challenge. Indeed, getting accurate measurements requires reserving the target system for the whole duration of experiments. Furthermore, observations are limited to the few available systems at hand and may be difficult to generalize. In this article, we show how we crafted a coarse-grain hybrid simulation/emulation of StarPU, a dynamic runtime for hybrid architectures, over SimGrid, a versatile simulator of distributed systems. This approach allows to obtain performance predictions of classical dense linear algebra kernels accurate within a few percents and in a matter of seconds, which allows both runtime and application designers to quickly decide which optimization to enable or whether it is worth investing in higher-end GPUs or not. Additionally, it allows to conduct robust and extensive scheduling studies in a controlled environment whose characteristics are very close to real platforms while having reproducible behavior

Work Zone Safety Analysis, Investigating Benefits from Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) on Roadway Safety

The attributes of work zones have significant impacts on the risk of crash occurrence. Therefore, identifying the factors associated with crash severity and frequency in work zone locations is of important value to roadway safety. In addition, the significant loss of workers’ lives and injuries resulting from work zone crashes indicates the emergent need for a comprehensive and in-depth investigation of work zone crash mechanisms. The cost of work zone crashes is another issue that should be taken into account as work zone crashes impose millions of dollars on society each year. Applying innovative construction methods like Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) dramatically decreases on-site construction duration and thus improves roadway safety. This safe and cost-effective procedure for building new bridges or replacing/rehabilitating existing bridges in just a few weeks instead of months or years may prevent crashes and avoid injuries as a result of work zone presence. The application of machine learning techniques in traffic safety studies has seen explosive growth in recent years. Compared to statistical methods, MLs are more accurate prediction models due to their ability to deal with more complex functions. To this end, this study focuses on three major areas: crash severity at construction work zones with worker presence, crash frequency at bridge locations, and assessment of the associated costs to calculate the contribution of safety to the benefit-cost ratio of ABC as compared to conventional methods. Some key findings of this study can be highlighted as in-depth investigation of contributing factors in conjunction with the results from statistical and machine learning models, which can provide a more comprehensive interpretation of crash severity/frequency outcomes. The demonstration of work zone crashes needs to be modeled separately by time of day for severity analysis with a high level of confidence. Investigation of the contributing factors revealed the nonlinear relationship between crash severity/frequency and contributing factors. Finally, the results showed that the safety benefits from a case study in Florida consisted of 43% of the total ABC implementation cost. This indicates that the safety benefits of ABC implementation consist of a considerable portion of its benefit-cost ratio