50,000 research outputs found
RELEASE: A High-level Paradigm for Reliable Large-scale Server Software
Erlang is a functional language with a much-emulated model for building reliable distributed systems. This paper outlines the RELEASE project, and describes the progress in the rst six months. The project aim is to scale the Erlang's radical concurrency-oriented programming paradigm to build reliable general-purpose software, such as server-based systems, on massively parallel machines. Currently Erlang has inherently scalable computation and reliability models, but in practice scalability is constrained by aspects of the language and virtual machine. We are working at three levels to address these challenges: evolving the Erlang virtual machine so that it can work effectively on large scale multicore systems; evolving the language to Scalable Distributed (SD) Erlang; developing a scalable Erlang infrastructure to integrate multiple, heterogeneous clusters. We are also developing state of the art tools that allow programmers to understand the behaviour of massively parallel SD Erlang programs. We will demonstrate the e ectiveness of the RELEASE approach using demonstrators and two large case studies on a Blue Gene
One-step deposition of nano-to-micron-scalable, high-quality digital image correlation patterns for high-strain in-situ multi-microscopy testing
Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is of vital importance in the field of
experimental mechanics, yet, producing suitable DIC patterns for demanding
in-situ mechanical tests remains challenging, especially for ultra-fine
patterns, despite the large number of patterning techniques in the literature.
Therefore, we propose a simple, flexible, one-step technique (only requiring a
conventional deposition machine) to obtain scalable, high-quality, robust DIC
patterns, suitable for a range of microscopic techniques, by deposition of a
low melting temperature solder alloy in so-called 'island growth' mode, without
elevating the substrate temperature. Proof of principle is shown by
(near-)room-temperature deposition of InSn patterns, yielding highly dense,
homogeneous DIC patterns over large areas with a feature size that can be tuned
from as small as 10nm to 2um and with control over the feature shape and
density by changing the deposition parameters. Pattern optimization, in terms
of feature size, density, and contrast, is demonstrated for imaging with atomic
force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical microscopy and
profilometry. Moreover, the performance of the InSn DIC patterns and their
robustness to large deformations is validated in two challenging case studies
of in-situ micro-mechanical testing: (i) self-adaptive isogeometric digital
height correlation of optical surface height profiles of a coarse, bimodal InSn
pattern providing microscopic 3D deformation fields (illustrated for
delamination of aluminum interconnects on a polyimide substrate) and (ii) DIC
on SEM images of a much finer InSn pattern allowing quantification of high
strains near fracture locations (illustrated for rupture of a Fe foil). As
such, the high controllability, performance and scalability of the DIC patterns
offers a promising step towards more routine DIC-based in-situ micro-mechanical
testing.Comment: Accepted for publication in Strai
A Tale of Two Data-Intensive Paradigms: Applications, Abstractions, and Architectures
Scientific problems that depend on processing large amounts of data require
overcoming challenges in multiple areas: managing large-scale data
distribution, co-placement and scheduling of data with compute resources, and
storing and transferring large volumes of data. We analyze the ecosystems of
the two prominent paradigms for data-intensive applications, hereafter referred
to as the high-performance computing and the Apache-Hadoop paradigm. We propose
a basis, common terminology and functional factors upon which to analyze the
two approaches of both paradigms. We discuss the concept of "Big Data Ogres"
and their facets as means of understanding and characterizing the most common
application workloads found across the two paradigms. We then discuss the
salient features of the two paradigms, and compare and contrast the two
approaches. Specifically, we examine common implementation/approaches of these
paradigms, shed light upon the reasons for their current "architecture" and
discuss some typical workloads that utilize them. In spite of the significant
software distinctions, we believe there is architectural similarity. We discuss
the potential integration of different implementations, across the different
levels and components. Our comparison progresses from a fully qualitative
examination of the two paradigms, to a semi-quantitative methodology. We use a
simple and broadly used Ogre (K-means clustering), characterize its performance
on a range of representative platforms, covering several implementations from
both paradigms. Our experiments provide an insight into the relative strengths
of the two paradigms. We propose that the set of Ogres will serve as a
benchmark to evaluate the two paradigms along different dimensions.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
Tackling Exascale Software Challenges in Molecular Dynamics Simulations with GROMACS
GROMACS is a widely used package for biomolecular simulation, and over the
last two decades it has evolved from small-scale efficiency to advanced
heterogeneous acceleration and multi-level parallelism targeting some of the
largest supercomputers in the world. Here, we describe some of the ways we have
been able to realize this through the use of parallelization on all levels,
combined with a constant focus on absolute performance. Release 4.6 of GROMACS
uses SIMD acceleration on a wide range of architectures, GPU offloading
acceleration, and both OpenMP and MPI parallelism within and between nodes,
respectively. The recent work on acceleration made it necessary to revisit the
fundamental algorithms of molecular simulation, including the concept of
neighborsearching, and we discuss the present and future challenges we see for
exascale simulation - in particular a very fine-grained task parallelism. We
also discuss the software management, code peer review and continuous
integration testing required for a project of this complexity.Comment: EASC 2014 conference proceedin
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