TABARNAC: Visualizing and Resolving Memory Access Issues on NUMA Architectures

International audienceIn modern parallel architectures, memory accesses represent a common bottleneck. Thus, optimizing the way applications access the memory is an important way to improve performance and energy consumption. Memory accesses are even more important with NUMA machines, as the access time to data depends on its location in the memory. Many efforts were made to develop adaptive tools to improve memory accesses at the runtime by optimizing the mapping of data and threads to NUMA nodes. However, theses tools are not able to change the memory access pattern of the original application, therefore a code written without considering memory performance might not benefit from them. Moreover, automatic mapping tools take time to converge towards the best mapping, losing optimization opportunities. A deeper understanding of the memory behavior can help optimizing it, removing the need for runtime analysis. In this paper, we present TABARNAC , a tool for analyzing the memory behavior of parallel applications with a focus on NUMA architectures. TABARNAC provides a new visualization of the memory access behavior, focusing on the distribution of accesses by thread and by structure. Such visualization allows the developer to easily understand why performance issues occur and how to fix them. Using TABARNAC , we explain why some applications do not benefit from data and thread mapping. Moreover, we propose several code modifications to improve the memory access behavior of several parallel applications. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credi

TABARNAC: Tools for Analyzing Behavior of Applications Running on NUMA Architecture

In modern parallel architectures, memory accesses represent a commonbottleneck. Thus, optimizing the way applications access the memory is an important way to improve performance and energy consumption. Memory accesses are even more important with NUMAmachines, as the access time to data depends on its location inthe memory. Many efforts were made todevelop adaptive tools to improve memory accesses at the runtime by optimizingthe mapping of data and threads to NUMA nodes. However, theses tools are notable to change the memory access pattern of the original application,therefore a code written without considering memory performance mightnot benefit from them. Moreover, automatic mapping tools take time to convergetowards the best mapping, losing optimization opportunities. Adeeper understanding of the memory behavior can help optimizing it,removing the need for runtime analysis.In this paper, we present TABARNAC, a tool for analyzing the memory behavior of parallel applications with a focus on NUMA architectures.TABARNAC provides a new visualization of the memory access behavior, focusing on thedistribution of accesses by thread and by structure. Such visualization allows thedeveloper to easily understand why performance issues occur and how to fix them.Using TABARNAC, we explain why some applications do not benefit from dataand thread mapping. Moreover, we propose several code modifications toimprove the memory access behavior of several parallel applications.Les accès mémoire représentent une source de problème de performance fréquenteavec les architectures parallèle moderne. Ainsi optimiser la manière dont lesapplications accèdent à la mémoire est un moyen efficace d'améliorer laperformance et la consommation d'énergie. Les accès mémoire prennent d'autantplus d'important avec les machines NUMA où le temps d'accès à une donnéedépend de sa localisation dans la mémoire. De nombreuse études ont proposéesdes outils adaptatif pour améliorer les accès mémoire en temps réel, cesoutils opèrent en changeant le placement des données et des thread sur lesnœuds NUMA. Cependant ces outils n'ont pas la possibilité de changer la façondont l'application accède à la mémoire. De ce fait un code développé sansprendre en compte les performances des accès mémoire pourrait ne pas en tirerparti. De plus les outils de placement automatique ont besoin de temps pourconverger vers le meilleur placement, perdant des opportunités d'optimisation.Mieux comprendre le comportement mémoire peut aider à l'optimiser et supprimerle besoin d'optimisation en temps réel.Cette étude présente TABARNAC un outil pour analyser le comportement mémoired'application parallèles s'exécutant sur architecture NUMA. TABARNAC offreune nouvelle forme de visualisation du comportement mémoire mettant l'accentsur la distribution des accès entre les thread et par structure de données. Cetype de visualisations permettent de comprendre facilement pourquoi lesproblèmes de performances apparaissent et comment les résoudre. En utilisantTABARNAC, nous expliquons pourquoi certaines applications ne tirent pas partid'outils placement de donnée et de thread. De plus nous proposons plusieursmodification de code permettant d'améliorer le comportement mémoire de plusieursapplications parallèles

Performance analysis of parallel Python applications

Python is progressively consolidating itself within the HPC community with its simple syntax, large standard library, and powerful third-party libraries for scientific computing that are especially attractive to domain scientists. Despite Python lowering the bar for accessing parallel computing, utilizing the capacities of HPC systems efficiently remains a challenging task, after all. Yet, at the moment only few supporting tools exist and provide merely basic information in the form of summarized profile data. In this paper, we present our efforts in developing event-based tracing support for Python within the performance monitor Extrae to provide detailed information and enable a profound performance analysis. We present concepts to record the complete communication behavior as well as to capture entry and exit of functions in Python to provide the according application context. We evaluate our implementation in Extrae by analyzing the well-established electronic structure simulation package GPAW and demonstrate that the recorded traces provide equivalent information as for traditional C or Fortran applications and, therefore, offering the same profound analysis capabilities now for Python, as well.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Task scheduling in dataflow computer architectures

Dataflow computers provide a platform for the solution of a large class of computational problems, which includes digital signal processing and image processing. Many typical applications are represented by a set of tasks which can be repetitively executed in parallel as specified by an associated dataflow graph. Research in this area aims to model these architectures, develop scheduling procedures, and predict the transient and steady state performance. Researchers at NASA have created a model and developed associated software tools which are capable of analyzing a dataflow graph and predicting its runtime performance under various resource and timing constraints. These models and tools were extended and used in this work. Experiments using these tools revealed certain properties of such graphs that require further study. Specifically, the transient behavior at the beginning of the execution of a graph can have a significant effect on the steady state performance. Transformation and retiming of the application algorithm and its initial conditions can produce a different transient behavior and consequently different steady state performance. The effect of such transformations on the resource requirements or under resource constraints requires extensive study. Task scheduling to obtain maximum performance (based on user-defined criteria), or to satisfy a set of resource constraints, can also be significantly affected by a transformation of the application algorithm. Since task scheduling is performed by heuristic algorithms, further research is needed to determine if new scheduling heuristics can be developed that can exploit such transformations. This work has provided the initial development for further long-term research efforts. A simulation tool was completed to provide insight into the transient and steady state execution of a dataflow graph. A set of scheduling algorithms was completed which can operate in conjunction with the modeling and performance tools previously developed. Initial studies on the performance of these algorithms were done to examine the effects of application algorithm transformations as measured by such quantities as number of processors, time between outputs, time between input and output, communication time, and memory size

Mira: A Framework for Static Performance Analysis

The performance model of an application can pro- vide understanding about its runtime behavior on particular hardware. Such information can be analyzed by developers for performance tuning. However, model building and analyzing is frequently ignored during software development until perfor- mance problems arise because they require significant expertise and can involve many time-consuming application runs. In this paper, we propose a fast, accurate, flexible and user-friendly tool, Mira, for generating performance models by applying static program analysis, targeting scientific applications running on supercomputers. We parse both the source code and binary to estimate performance attributes with better accuracy than considering just source or just binary code. Because our analysis is static, the target program does not need to be executed on the target architecture, which enables users to perform analysis on available machines instead of conducting expensive exper- iments on potentially expensive resources. Moreover, statically generated models enable performance prediction on non-existent or unavailable architectures. In addition to flexibility, because model generation time is significantly reduced compared to dynamic analysis approaches, our method is suitable for rapid application performance analysis and improvement. We present several scientific application validation results to demonstrate the current capabilities of our approach on small benchmarks and a mini application

Performance Debugging and Tuning using an Instruction-Set Simulator

Instruction-set simulators allow programmers a detailed level of insight into, and control over, the execution of a program, including parallel programs and operating systems. In principle, instruction set simulation can model any target computer and gather any statistic. Furthermore, such simulators are usually portable, independent of compiler tools, and deterministic-allowing bugs to be recreated or measurements repeated. Though often viewed as being too slow for use as a general programming tool, in the last several years their performance has improved considerably. We describe SIMICS, an instruction set simulator of SPARC-based multiprocessors developed at SICS, in its rôle as a general programming tool. We discuss some of the benefits of using a tool such as SIMICS to support various tasks in software engineering, including debugging, testing, analysis, and performance tuning. We present in some detail two test cases, where we've used SimICS to support analysis and performance tuning of two applications, Penny and EQNTOTT. This work resulted in improved parallelism in, and understanding of, Penny, as well as a performance improvement for EQNTOTT of over a magnitude. We also present some early work on analyzing SPARC/Linux, demonstrating the ability of tools like SimICS to analyze operating systems

TaskInsight: Understanding Task Schedules Effects on Memory and Performance

Recent scheduling heuristics for task-based applications have managed to improve their by taking into account memory-related properties such as data locality and cache sharing. However, there is still a general lack of tools that can provide insights into why, and where, different schedulers improve memory behavior, and how this is related to the applications' performance. To address this, we present TaskInsight, a technique to characterize the memory behavior of different task schedulers through the analysis of data reuse between tasks. TaskInsight provides high-level, quantitative information that can be correlated with tasks' performance variation over time to understand data reuse through the caches due to scheduling choices. TaskInsight is useful to diagnose and identify which scheduling decisions affected performance, when were they taken, and why the performance changed, both in single and multi-threaded executions. We demonstrate how TaskInsight can diagnose examples where poor scheduling caused over 10% difference in performance for tasks of the same type, due to changes in the tasks' data reuse through the private and shared caches, in single and multi-threaded executions of the same application. This flexible insight is key for optimization in many contexts, including data locality, throughput, memory footprint or even energy efficiency.We thank the reviewers for their feedback. This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research project FFL12-0051 and carried out within the Linnaeus Centre of Excellence UPMARC, Uppsala Programming for Multicore Architectures Research Center. This paper was also published with the support of the HiPEAC network that received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 687698.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version