785 research outputs found
Transparent support for partial rollback in software transactional memories
The Software Transactional Memory (STM) paradigm has gained momentum thanks to its ability to provide synchronization transparency in concurrent applications. With this paradigm, accesses to data structures that are shared among multiple threads are carried out within transactions, which are properly handled by the STM layer with no intervention by the application code. In this article we propose an enhancement of typical STM architectures which allows supporting partial rollback of active transactions, as opposed to the typical case where a rollback of a transaction entails squashing all the already-performed work. Our partial rollback scheme is still transparent to the application programmer and has been implemented for x86-64 architectures and for the ELF format, thus being largely usable on POSIX-compliant systems hosted on top of off-the-shelf architectures. We integrated it within the TinySTM open-source library and we present experimental results for the STAMP STM benchmark run on top of a 32-core HP ProLiant server. © 2013 Springer-Verlag
FADI: a fault-tolerant environment for open distributed computing
FADI is a complete programming environment that serves the reliable execution of distributed application programs. FADI encompasses all aspects of modern fault-tolerant distributed computing. The built-in user-transparent error detection mechanism covers processor node crashes and hardware transient failures. The mechanism also integrates user-assisted error checks into the system failure model. The nucleus non-blocking checkpointing mechanism combined with a novel selective message logging technique delivers an efficient, low-overhead backup and recovery mechanism for distributed processes. FADI also provides means for remote automatic process allocation on the distributed system nodes
A survey of checkpointing algorithms for parallel and distributed computers
Checkpoint is defined as a designated place in a program at which normal processing is interrupted specifically to preserve the status information necessary to allow resumption of processing at a later time. Checkpointing is the process of saving the status information. This paper surveys the algorithms which have been reported in the literature for checkpointing parallel/distributed systems. It has been observed that most of the algorithms published for checkpointing in message passing systems are based on the seminal article by Chandy and Lamport. A large number of articles have been published in this area by relaxing the assumptions made in this paper and by extending it to minimise the overheads of coordination and context saving. Checkpointing for shared memory systems primarily extend cache coherence protocols to maintain a consistent memory. All of them assume that the main memory is safe for storing the context. Recently algorithms have been published for distributed shared memory systems, which extend the cache coherence protocols used in shared memory systems. They however also include methods for storing the status of distributed memory in stable storage. Most of the algorithms assume that there is no knowledge about the programs being executed. It is however felt that in development of parallel programs the user has to do a fair amount of work in distributing tasks and this information can be effectively used to simplify checkpointing and rollback recovery
Autonomic State Management for Optimistic Simulation Platforms
We present the design and implementation of an autonomic state manager (ASM) tailored for integration within optimistic parallel discrete event simulation (PDES) environments based on the C programming language and the executable and linkable format (ELF), and developed for execution on x8664 architectures. With ASM, the state of any logical process (LP), namely the individual (concurrent) simulation unit being part of the simulation model, is allowed to be scattered on dynamically allocated memory chunks managed via standard API (e.g., malloc/free). Also, the application programmer is not required to provide any serialization/deserialization module in order to take a checkpoint of the LP state, or to restore it in case a causality error occurs during the optimistic run, or to provide indications on which portions of the state are updated by event processing, so to allow incremental checkpointing. All these tasks are handled by ASM in a fully transparent manner via (A) runtime identification (with chunk-level granularity) of the memory map associated with the LP state, and (B) runtime tracking of the memory updates occurring within chunks belonging to the dynamic memory map. The co-existence of the incremental and non-incremental log/restore modes is achieved via dual versions of the same application code, transparently generated by ASM via compile/link time facilities. Also, the dynamic selection of the best suited log/restore mode is actuated by ASM on the basis of an innovative modeling/optimization approach which takes into account stability of each operating mode with respect to variations of the model/environmental execution parameters
Application-level Fault Tolerance and Resilience in HPC Applications
Programa Oficial de Doutoramento en Investigación en Tecnoloxías da Información. 524V01[Resumo]
As necesidades computacionais das distintas ramas da ciencia medraron enormemente
nos últimos anos, o que provocou un gran crecemento no rendemento proporcionado
polos supercomputadores. Cada vez constrúense sistemas de computación
de altas prestacións de maior tamaño, con máis recursos hardware de distintos tipos,
o que fai que as taxas de fallo destes sistemas tamén medren. Polo tanto, o
estudo de técnicas de tolerancia a fallos eficientes é indispensábel para garantires
que os programas científicos poidan completar a súa execución, evitando ademais
que se dispare o consumo de enerxía. O checkpoint/restart é unha das técnicas máis
populares. Sen embargo, a maioría da investigación levada a cabo nas últimas décadas
céntrase en estratexias stop-and-restart para aplicacións de memoria distribuída
tralo acontecemento dun fallo-parada. Esta tese propón técnicas checkpoint/restart
a nivel de aplicación para os modelos de programación paralela roáis populares en
supercomputación. Implementáronse protocolos de checkpointing para aplicacións
híbridas MPI-OpenMP e aplicacións heteroxéneas baseadas en OpenCL, en ámbolos
dous casos prestando especial coidado á portabilidade e maleabilidade da solución.
En canto a aplicacións de memoria distribuída, proponse unha solución de resiliencia
que pode ser empregada de forma xenérica en aplicacións MPI SPMD, permitindo
detectar e reaccionar a fallos-parada sen abortar a execución. Neste caso, os procesos
fallidos vólvense a lanzar e o estado da aplicación recupérase cunha volta atrás global.
A maiores, esta solución de resiliencia optimizouse implementando unha volta
atrás local, na que só os procesos fallidos volven atrás, empregando un protocolo de
almacenaxe de mensaxes para garantires a consistencia e o progreso da execución.
Por último, propónse a extensión dunha librería de checkpointing para facilitares a implementación de estratexias de recuperación ad hoc ante conupcións de memoria.
En moitas ocasións, estos erros poden ser xestionados a nivel de aplicación, evitando
desencadear un fallo-parada e permitindo unha recuperación máis eficiente.[Resumen]
El rápido aumento de las necesidades de cómputo de distintas ramas de la ciencia
ha provocado un gran crecimiento en el rendimiento ofrecido por los supercomputadores.
Cada vez se construyen sistemas de computación de altas prestaciones mayores,
con más recursos hardware de distintos tipos, lo que hace que las tasas de
fallo del sistema aumenten. Por tanto, el estudio de técnicas de tolerancia a fallos
eficientes resulta indispensable para garantizar que los programas científicos puedan
completar su ejecución, evitando además que se dispare el consumo de energía. La
técnica checkpoint/restart es una de las más populares. Sin embargo, la mayor parte
de la investigación en este campo se ha centrado en estrategias stop-and-restart
para aplicaciones de memoria distribuida tras la ocurrencia de fallos-parada. Esta
tesis propone técnicas checkpoint/restart a nivel de aplicación para los modelos de
programación paralela más populares en supercomputación. Se han implementado
protocolos de checkpointing para aplicaciones híbridas MPI-OpenMP y aplicaciones
heterogéneas basadas en OpenCL, prestando en ambos casos especial atención a la
portabilidad y la maleabilidad de la solución. Con respecto a aplicaciones de memoria
distribuida, se propone una solución de resiliencia que puede ser usada de forma
genérica en aplicaciones MPI SPMD, permitiendo detectar y reaccionar a fallosparada
sin abortar la ejecución. En su lugar, se vuelven a lanzar los procesos fallidos
y se recupera el estado de la aplicación con una vuelta atrás global. A mayores, esta
solución de resiliencia ha sido optimizada implementando una vuelta atrás local, en
la que solo los procesos fallidos vuelven atrás, empleando un protocolo de almacenaje
de mensajes para garantizar la consistencia y el progreso de la ejecución. Por
último, se propone una extensión de una librería de checkpointing para facilitar la
implementación de estrategias de recuperación ad hoc ante corrupciones de memoria.
Muchas veces, este tipo de errores puede gestionarse a nivel de aplicación, evitando
desencadenar un fallo-parada y permitiendo una recuperación más eficiente.[Abstract]
The rapid increase in the computational demands of science has lead to a pronounced
growth in the performance offered by supercomputers. As High Performance
Computing (HPC) systems grow larger, including more hardware components
of different types, the system's failure rate becomes higher. Efficient fault
tolerance techniques are essential not only to ensure the execution completion but
also to save energy. Checkpoint/restart is one of the most popular fault tolerance
techniques. However, most of the research in this field is focused on stop-and-restart
strategies for distributed-memory applications in the event of fail-stop failures. Thís
thesis focuses on the implementation of application-level checkpoint/restart solutions
for the most popular parallel programming models used in HPC. Hence, we
have implemented checkpointing solutions to cope with fail-stop failures in hybrid
MPI-OpenMP applications and OpenCL-based programs. Both strategies maximize
the restart portability and malleability, ie., the recovery can take place on
machines with different CPU / accelerator architectures, and/ or operating systems,
and can be adapted to the available resources (number of cores/accelerators). Regarding
distributed-memory applications, we propose a resilience solution that can
be generally applied to SPMD MPI programs. Resilient applications can detect and
react to failures without aborting their execution upon fail-stop failures. Instead,
failed processes are re-spawned, and the application state is recovered through a
global rollback. Moreover, we have optimized this resilience proposal by implementing
a local rollback protocol, in which only failed processes rollback to a previous
state, while message logging enables global consistency and further progress of the
computation. Finally, we have extended a checkpointing library to facilitate the
implementation of ad hoc recovery strategies in the event of soft errors) caused by
memory corruptions. Many times, these errors can be handled at the software-Ievel,
tIms, avoiding fail-stop failures and enabling a more efficient recovery
An Evolutionary Algorithm to Optimize Log/Restore Operations within Optimistic Simulation Platforms
In this work we address state recoverability in advanced optimistic simulation systems by proposing an evolutionary algorithm to optimize at run-time the parameters associated with state log/restore activities. Optimization takes place by adaptively selecting for each simulation object both (i) the best suited log mode (incremental vs non-incremental) and (ii) the corresponding optimal value of the log interval. Our performance optimization approach allows to indirectly cope with hidden effects (e.g., locality) as well as cross-object effects due to the variation of log/restore parameters for different simulation objects (e.g., rollback thrashing). Both of them are not captured by literature solutions based on analytical models of the overhead associated with log/restore tasks. More in detail, our evolutionary algorithm dynamically adjusts the log/restore parameters of distinct simulation objects as a whole, towards a well suited configuration. In such a way, we prevent negative effects on performance due to the biasing of the optimization towards individual simulation objects, which may cause reduced gains (or even decrease) in performance just due to the aforementioned hidden and/or cross-object phenomena. We also present an application-transparent implementation of the evolutionary algorithm within the ROme OpTimistic Simulator (ROOT-Sim), namely an open source, general purpose simulation environment designed according to the optimistic synchronization paradigm
Transparently Mixing Undo Logs and Software Reversibility for State Recovery in Optimistic PDES
The rollback operation is a fundamental building block to support the correct execution of a speculative Time Warp-based Parallel Discrete Event Simulation. In the literature, several solutions to reduce the execution cost of this operation have been proposed, either based on the creation of a checkpoint of previous simulation state images, or on the execution of negative copies of simulation events which are able to undo the updates on the state. In this paper, we explore the practical design and implementation of a state recoverability technique which allows to restore a previous simulation state either relying on checkpointing or on the reverse execution of the state updates occurred while processing events in forward mode. Differently from other proposals, we address the issue of executing backward updates in a fully-transparent and event granularity-independent way, by relying on static software instrumentation (targeting the x86 architecture and Linux systems) to generate at runtime reverse update code blocks (not to be confused with reverse events, proper of the reverse computing approach). These are able to undo the effects of a forward execution while minimizing the cost of the undo operation. We also present experimental results related to our implementation, which is released as free software and fully integrated into the open source ROOT-Sim (ROme OpTimistic Simulator) package. The experimental data support the viability and effectiveness of our proposal
Consistent and efficient output-streams management in optimistic simulation platforms
Optimistic synchronization is considered an effective means for supporting Parallel Discrete Event Simulations. It relies on a speculative approach, where concurrent processes execute simulation events regardless of their safety, and consistency is ensured via proper rollback mechanisms, upon the a-posteriori detection of causal inconsistencies along the events' execution path. Interactions with the outside world (e.g. generation of output streams) are a well-known problem for rollback-based systems, since the outside world may have no notion of rollback. In this context, approaches for allowing the simulation modeler to generate consistent output rely on either the usage of ad-hoc APIs (which must be provided by the underlying simulation kernel) or temporary suspension of processing activities in order to wait for the final outcome (commit/rollback) associated with a speculatively-produced output. In this paper we present design indications and a reference implementation for an output streams' management subsystem which allows the simulation-model writer to rely on standard output-generation libraries (e.g. stdio) within code blocks associated with event processing. Further, the subsystem ensures that the produced output is consistent, namely associated with events that are eventually committed, and system-wide ordered along the simulation time axis. The above features jointly provide the illusion of a classical (simple to deal with) sequential programming model, which spares the developer from being aware that the simulation program is run concurrently and speculatively. We also show, via an experimental study, how the design/development optimizations we present lead to limited overhead, giving rise to the situation where the simulation run would have been carried out with near-to-zero or reduced output management cost. At the same time, the delay for materializing the output stream (making it available for any type of audit activity) is shown to be fairly limited and constant, especially for good mixtures of I/O-bound vs CPU-bound behaviors at the application level. Further, the whole output streams' management subsystem has been designed in order to provide scalability for I/O management on clusters. © 2013 ACM
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