Evaluation of the parallel computational capabilities of embedded platforms for critical systems

Modern critical systems need higher performance which cannot be delivered by the simple architectures used so far. Latest embedded architectures feature multi-cores and GPUs, which can be used to satisfy this need. In this thesis we parallelise relevant applications from multiple critical domains represented in the GPU4S benchmark suite, and perform a comparison of the parallel capabilities of candidate platforms for use in critical systems. In particular, we port the open source GPU4S Bench benchmarking suite in the OpenMP programming model, and we benchmark the candidate embedded heterogeneous multi-core platforms of the H2020 UP2DATE project, NVIDIA TX2, NVIDIA Xavier and Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+, in order to drive the selection of the research platform which will be used in the next phases of the project. Our result indicate that in terms of CPU and GPU performance, the NVIDIA Xavier is the highest performing platform

Single system image: A survey

Single system image is a computing paradigm where a number of distributed computing resources are aggregated and presented via an interface that maintains the illusion of interaction with a single system. This approach encompasses decades of research using a broad variety of techniques at varying levels of abstraction, from custom hardware and distributed hypervisors to specialized operating system kernels and user-level tools. Existing classification schemes for SSI technologies are reviewed, and an updated classification scheme is proposed. A survey of implementation techniques is provided along with relevant examples. Notable deployments are examined and insights gained from hands-on experience are summarized. Issues affecting the adoption of kernel-level SSI are identified and discussed in the context of technology adoption literature

Efficient Numerical Solution of Large Scale Algebraic Matrix Equations in PDE Control and Model Order Reduction

Matrix Lyapunov and Riccati equations are an important tool in mathematical systems theory. They are the key ingredients in balancing based model order reduction techniques and linear quadratic regulator problems. For small and moderately sized problems these equations are solved by techniques with at least cubic complexity which prohibits their usage in large scale applications. Around the year 2000 solvers for large scale problems have been introduced. The basic idea there is to compute a low rank decomposition of the quadratic and dense solution matrix and in turn reduce the memory and computational complexity of the algorithms. In this thesis efficiency enhancing techniques for the low rank alternating directions implicit iteration based solution of large scale matrix equations are introduced and discussed. Also the applicability in the context of real world systems is demonstrated. The thesis is structured in seven central chapters. After the introduction chapter 2 introduces the basic concepts and notations needed as fundamental tools for the remainder of the thesis. The next chapter then introduces a collection of test examples spanning from easily scalable academic test systems to badly conditioned technical applications which are used to demonstrate the features of the solvers. Chapter four and five describe the basic solvers and the modifications taken to make them applicable to an even larger class of problems. The following two chapters treat the application of the solvers in the context of model order reduction and linear quadratic optimal control of PDEs. The final chapter then presents the extensive numerical testing undertaken with the solvers proposed in the prior chapters. Some conclusions and an appendix complete the thesis

Supercomputing Frontiers

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th Asian Conference Supercomputing Conference, SCFA 2022, which took place in Singapore in March 2022. The 8 full papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 21 submissions. They cover a range of topics including file systems, memory hierarchy, HPC cloud platform, container image configuration workflow, large-scale applications, and scheduling

Reliability-oriented resource management for High-Performance Computing

Reliability is an increasingly pressing issue for High-Performance Computing systems, as failures are a threat to large-scale applications, for which an even single run may incur significant energy and billing costs. Currently, application developers need to address reliability explicitly, by integrating application-specific checkpoint/restore mechanisms. However, the application alone cannot exploit system knowledge, which is not the case for system-wide resource management systems. In this paper, we propose a reliability-oriented policy that can increase significantly component reliability by combining checkpoint/restore mechanisms exploitation and proactive resource management policies

Locality Awareness for Task Parallel Computation

The task parallel programming model allows programmers to express concurrency at a high level of abstraction and places the burden of scheduling parallel execution on the run time system. Efficient scheduling of tasks on multi-socket multicore shared memory systems requires careful consideration of an increasingly complex memory hierarchy, including shared caches and non-uniform memory access (NUMA) characteristics. In this dissertation, we study the performance impact of these issues and other performance factors that limit parallel speedup in task parallel program executions and propose new scheduling strategies to improve performance. Our performance model characterizes lost efficiency in terms of overhead time, idle time, and work time inflation due to increased data access costs. We introduce a hierarchical run time scheduler that combines the benefits of work stealing and parallel depth-first schedulers. Matching the scheduler design to the memory hierarchy of multicore NUMA systems limits costly remote data accesses while maintaining load balance and exploiting constructive data sharing among threads that share a cache. We also propose a locality- based scheduling framework based on locality domains and comprising an API for programmers to specify application locality and a scheduler that honors those specifications. Implementations of the hierarchical and locality-based schedulers in our OpenMP run time system exhibit performance improvements on several task parallel benchmark applications over existing scheduling strategies and production OpenMP run time systems.Doctor of Philosoph

Contribution à la convergence d'infrastructure entre le calcul haute performance et le traitement de données à large échelle

The amount of produced data, either in the scientific community or the commercialworld, is constantly growing. The field of Big Data has emerged to handle largeamounts of data on distributed computing infrastructures. High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructures are traditionally used for the execution of computeintensive workloads. However, the HPC community is also facing an increasingneed to process large amounts of data derived from high definition sensors andlarge physics apparati. The convergence of the two fields -HPC and Big Data- iscurrently taking place. In fact, the HPC community already uses Big Data tools,which are not always integrated correctly, especially at the level of the file systemand the Resource and Job Management System (RJMS).In order to understand how we can leverage HPC clusters for Big Data usage, andwhat are the challenges for the HPC infrastructures, we have studied multipleaspects of the convergence: We initially provide a survey on the software provisioning methods, with a focus on data-intensive applications. We contribute a newRJMS collaboration technique called BeBiDa which is based on 50 lines of codewhereas similar solutions use at least 1000 times more. We evaluate this mechanism on real conditions and in simulated environment with our simulator Batsim.Furthermore, we provide extensions to Batsim to support I/O, and showcase thedevelopments of a generic file system model along with a Big Data applicationmodel. This allows us to complement BeBiDa real conditions experiments withsimulations while enabling us to study file system dimensioning and trade-offs.All the experiments and analysis of this work have been done with reproducibilityin mind. Based on this experience, we propose to integrate the developmentworkflow and data analysis in the reproducibility mindset, and give feedback onour experiences with a list of best practices.RésuméLa quantité de données produites, que ce soit dans la communauté scientifiqueou commerciale, est en croissance constante. Le domaine du Big Data a émergéface au traitement de grandes quantités de données sur les infrastructures informatiques distribuées. Les infrastructures de calcul haute performance (HPC) sont traditionnellement utilisées pour l’exécution de charges de travail intensives en calcul. Cependant, la communauté HPC fait également face à un nombre croissant debesoin de traitement de grandes quantités de données dérivées de capteurs hautedéfinition et de grands appareils physique. La convergence des deux domaines-HPC et Big Data- est en cours. En fait, la communauté HPC utilise déjà des outilsBig Data, qui ne sont pas toujours correctement intégrés, en particulier au niveaudu système de fichiers ainsi que du système de gestion des ressources (RJMS).Afin de comprendre comment nous pouvons tirer parti des clusters HPC pourl’utilisation du Big Data, et quels sont les défis pour les infrastructures HPC, nousavons étudié plusieurs aspects de la convergence: nous avons d’abord proposé uneétude sur les méthodes de provisionnement logiciel, en mettant l’accent sur lesapplications utilisant beaucoup de données. Nous contribuons a l’état de l’art avecune nouvelle technique de collaboration entre RJMS appelée BeBiDa basée sur 50lignes de code alors que des solutions similaires en utilisent au moins 1000 fois plus.Nous évaluons ce mécanisme en conditions réelles et en environnement simuléavec notre simulateur Batsim. En outre, nous fournissons des extensions à Batsimpour prendre en charge les entrées/sorties et présentons le développements d’unmodèle de système de fichiers générique accompagné d’un modèle d’applicationBig Data. Cela nous permet de compléter les expériences en conditions réellesde BeBiDa en simulation tout en étudiant le dimensionnement et les différentscompromis autours des systèmes de fichiers.Toutes les expériences et analyses de ce travail ont été effectuées avec la reproductibilité à l’esprit. Sur la base de cette expérience, nous proposons d’intégrerle flux de travail du développement et de l’analyse des données dans l’esprit dela reproductibilité, et de donner un retour sur nos expériences avec une liste debonnes pratiques

Why Chromatic Imaging Matters

During the last two decades, the first generation of beam combiners at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer has proved the importance of optical interferometry for high-angular resolution astrophysical studies in the near- and mid-infrared. With the advent of 4-beam combiners at the VLTI, the u-v coverage per pointing increases significantly, providing an opportunity to use reconstructed images as powerful scientific tools. Therefore, interferometric imaging is already a key feature of the new generation of VLTI instruments, as well as for other interferometric facilities like CHARA and JWST. It is thus imperative to account for the current image reconstruction capabilities and their expected evolutions in the coming years. Here, we present a general overview of the current situation of optical interferometric image reconstruction with a focus on new wavelength-dependent information, highlighting its main advantages and limitations. As an Appendix we include several cookbooks describing the usage and installation of several state-of-the art image reconstruction packages. To illustrate the current capabilities of the software available to the community, we recovered chromatic images, from simulated MATISSE data, using the MCMC software SQUEEZE. With these images, we aim at showing the importance of selecting good regularization functions and their impact on the reconstruction.Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy as part of the topical collection: Future of Optical-infrared Interferometry in Europ

Uncertainty-driven adaptive estimation with applications in electrical power systems

From electrical power systems to meteorology, large-scale state-space monitoring and forecasting methods are fundamental and critical. Such problem domains pose challenges from both computational and signal processing perspectives, as they typically comprise a large number of elements, and processes that are highly dynamic and complex (e.g., severe nonlinearity, discontinuities, and uncertainties). This makes it especially challenging to achieve real-time operations and control. For decades, researchers have developed methods and technology to improve the accuracy and efficiency of such large-scale state-space estimation. Some have devoted their efforts to hardware advances---developing advanced devices with higher data precision and update frequency. I have focused on methods for enhancing and optimizing the state estimation performance. As uncertainties are inevitable in any state estimation process, uncertainty analysis can provide valuable and informative guidance for on-line, predictive, or retroactive analysis. My research focuses primarily on three areas: 1. Grid Sensor Placement. I present a method that combines off-line steady-state uncertainty and topology analysis for optimal sensor placement throughout the grid network. 2. Filter Computation Adaptation. I present a method that utilizes on-line state uncertainty analysis to choose the best measurement subsets from the available (large-scale) measurement data. This allows systems to adapt to dynamically available computational resources. 3. Adaptive and Robust Estimation. I present a method with a novel on-line measurement uncertainty analysis that can distinguish between suboptimal/incorrect system modeling and/or erroneous measurements, weighting the system model and measurements appropriately in real-time as part of the normal estimation process. We seek to bridge the disciplinary boundaries between Computer Science and Power Systems Engineering, by introducing methods that leverage both existing and new techniques. While these methods are developed in the context of electrical power systems, they should generalize to other large-scale scientific and engineering applications.Doctor of Philosoph