Performance Tuning Of Scientific Applications

With contributions from some of the most notable experts in the field, Performance Tuning of Scientific Applications presents current research in performance analysis. The book focuses on the following areas.Performance monitoring: Describes the state of the art in hardware and software tools that are commonly used for monitoring and measuring perf

Abstract: "Performance tuning, as carried out by compiler designers and application programmers to close the performance gap between the achievable peak and delivered performance, becomes increasingly important and challenging as the microprocessor speeds and system sizes increase. However, although performance tuning on scientific codes usually deals with relatively small program regions, it is not generally known how to establish a reasonable performance objective and how to efficiently achieve this objective. We suggest a goal-directed approach and develop such an approach for each of three major system performance components: central processor unit (CPU) computation, memory accessing, and communication. For the CPU, we suggest using a machine-application performance model that characterizes workloads on four key function units (memory, floating-point, issue, and a virtual 'dependence unit') to produce an upper bound performance objective, and derive a mechanism to approach this objective. A case study shows an average 1.79x speedup achieved by using this approach for the Livermore Fortran Kernels 1-12 running on the IBM RS/6000. For memory, as compulsory and capacity misses are relatively easy to characterize, we derive a method for building application-specific cache behavior models that report the number of misses for all three types of conflict misses: self, cross, and ping-pong. The method uses averaging concepts to determine the expected number of cache misses instead of attempting to count them exactly in each instance, which provides a more rapid, yet realistic assessment of expected cache behavior. For each type of conflict miss, we propose a reduction method that uses one or a combination of three techniques based on modifying or exploiting data layout: array padding, initial address adjustment, and access resequencing. A case study using a blocked matrix multiply program as an example shows that the model is within 11% of the simulation results, and that each type of conflict miss can be effectively reduced or completely eliminated. For communication in shared memory parallel systems, we derive an array grouping mechanism and related loop transformations to reduce communication caused by the problematic case of nonconsecutive references to shared arrays and prove several theorems that determine when and where to apply this technique. The experimental results show a 15% reduction in communication, a 40% reduction in data subcache misses, and an 18% reduction in maximum user time for a finite element application on a 56 processor KSR1 parallel computer."

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th International Conference on High Performance Computing for Computational Science, VECPAR 2014, held in Eugene, OR, USA, in June/July 2014. The 25 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected of numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on algorithms for GPU and manycores, large-scale applications, numerical algorithms, direct/hybrid methods for solving sparse matrices, performance tuning. The volume also contains the papers presented at the 9th International Workshop on Automatic Performance Tuning.

This monograph addresses four critical software development aspects for the engineering and execution of applications on parallel and Grid architectures. A new directive-based language called ZEN is proposed for compact specification of wide value ranges of interest for arbitrary application parameters. The monograph contributes to various research areas related to integrated tool development for efficient engineering and high performance execution of scientific applications in Grid environments.

Data-intensive science has the potential to transform scientific research and quickly translate scientific progress into complete solutions, policies, and economic success. But this collaborative science is still lacking the effective access and exchange of knowledge among scientists, researchers, and policy makers across a range of disciplines. Bringing together leaders from multiple scientific disciplines, Data-Intensive Science shows how a comprehensive integration of various techniques and technological advances can effectively harness the vast amount of data being generated and significantly accelerate scientific progress to address some of the world's most challenging problems. In the book, a diverse cross-section of application, computer, and data scientists explores the impact of data-intensive science on current research and describes emerging technologies that will enable future scientific breakthroughs. The book identifies best practices used to tackle challenges facing data-intensive science as well as gaps in these approaches. It also focuses on the integration of data-intensive science into standard research practice, explaining how components in the data-intensive science environment need to work together to provide the necessary infrastructure for community-scale scientific collaborations. Organizing the material based on a high-level, data-intensive science workflow, this book provides an understanding of the scientific problems that would benefit from collaborative research, the current capabilities of data-intensive science, and the solutions to enable the next round of scientific advancements.

Describes practical programming approaches for scientific applications on exascale computer systems Presents strategies to make applications performance portable Provides specific solutions employed in current application porting and development Illustrates domain science software development strategies based on projected trends in supercomputing technology and architectures Includes contributions from leading experts involved in the development and porting of scientific codes for current and future high performance computing resources

Parallel computing has been the enabling technology of high-end machines for many years. Now, it has finally become the ubiquitous key to the efficient use of any kind of multi-processor computer architecture, from smart phones, tablets, embedded systems and cloud computing up to exascale computers. _x000D_ This book presents the proceedings of ParCo2013 – the latest edition of the biennial International Conference on Parallel Computing – held from 10 to 13 September 2013, in Garching, Germany. The conference focused on several key parallel computing areas. Themes included parallel programming models for multi- and manycore CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and heterogeneous platforms, the performance engineering processes that must be adapted to efficiently use these new and innovative platforms, novel numerical algorithms and approaches to large-scale simulations of problems in science and engineering._x000D_ The conference programme also included twelve mini-symposia (including an industry session and a special PhD Symposium), which comprehensively represented and intensified the discussion of current hot topics in high performance and parallel computing. These special sessions covered large-scale supercomputing, novel challenges arising from parallel architectures (multi-/manycore, heterogeneous platforms, FPGAs), multi-level algorithms as well as multi-scale, multi-physics and multi-dimensional problems._x000D_ It is clear that parallel computing – including the processing of large data sets (“Big Data”) – will remain a persistent driver of research in all fields of innovative computing, which makes this book relevant to all those with an interest in this field.

Combinatorial Scientific Computing explores the latest research on creating algorithms and software tools to solve key combinatorial problems on large-scale high-performance computing architectures. It includes contributions from international researchers who are pioneers in designing software and applications for high-performance computing systems