Cluster 2010 Workshops

• Monday, 20 September 2010
  • Parallel Programming and Applications on Accelerator Clusters (PPAAC)
  • Workshop on High Performance Computing on Complex Environments (HPCCE)
• Friday, 24 September 2010
  • Workshop on Interfaces and Abstractions for Scientific Data Storage (IASDS)
  • Application/Architecture Co-design for Extreme-scale Computing (AACEC)

Monday, 20 September 2010

• Practical Approach to performance analysis and modeling
  
  Speakers: Adolfy Hoisie and Darren J. Kerbyson (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA)
  
  Abstract: This tutorial presents a practical approach to the performance modeling of large-scale scientific applications on high performance systems. The defining characteristic involves the description of a proven modeling approach, developed at Los Alamos, of full-blown scientific codes, that has been validated on systems containing 10,000’s of processors and beyond. We show how models are constructed and demonstrate how they are used to predict, explain, diagnose, and engineer application performance in existing or future codes and/or systems. Notably, our approach does not require the use of specific tools but rather is applicable across commonly used environments. Moreover, since our performance models are parametric in terms of machine and application characteristics, they imbue the user with the ability to “experiment ahead” with different system configurations or algorithms/coding strategies. Both will be demonstrated in studies emphasizing the application of these modeling techniques including: verifying system performance, comparison of large-scale systems, and examination of possible future systems.

• Designing High-End Computing Systems with IB and 10GigEth
  
  Speakers: DK Panda (Ohio State Univesity) and P. Balaji (ANL)
  
  Abstract: InfiniBand (IB) and 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) interconnects are generating a lot of excitement towards building next generation High Performance Computing (HPC) systems and enterprise datacenters. This tutorial will provide an overview of these emerging interconnects, their offered features, their current market standing, and their suitability for prime-time HPC. It will start with a brief overview of IB, 10GE and their architectural features. An overview of the emerging OpenFabrics stack which encapsulates both IB and 10GE in a unified manner will be presented. IB and 10GE hardware/software solutions and the market trends will be highlighted. Finally, sample performance numbers highlighting the performance these technologies can achieve in different environments such as MPI, Sockets, Parallel File Systems, Multi-tier Datacenters, and Virtual Machines, will be shown.
  
  
• Practical parallel application performance engineering using innovative tools
  
  Speakers: Brian J. N. Wylie (Jülich Supercomputing Centre), Michael Gerndt (Technical University of Munich), and Wolfgang E. Nagel (Technical University of Dresden)
  
  Abstract: This tutorial presents state-of-the-art tools for engineering performant parallel applications on computer clusters with MPI and/or OpenMP. The suite of tools developed by the Virtual Institute for High Productivity Supercomputing (VI-HPS) are introduced, including Scalasca, Vampir and Periscope. The tools support automated and manually-customizable measurement and analyses with hardware counter metrics as well as communication and synchronization overheads. A series of hands-on exercises are included which participants are encouraged to follow on their notebook computers using a provided Live- DVD with a bootable typical HPC cluster Linux environment. This will offer practical experience using the tools and help prepare participants to apply modern methods for locating and diagnosing performance bottlenecks in real-world parallel applications up to the largest scales.