Section: New Results

Simulation of HPC Applications

Beside continuous development and contribution to the SimGrid project, the two following contributions have been published this year. Both build on the SMPI interface which allows to efficiently predict the performance of MPI applications.

• Finite-difference methods are commonplace in High Performance Computing applications. Despite their apparent regularity, they often exhibit load imbalance that damages their efficiency. In [9], we characterize the spatial and temporal load imbalance of Ondes3D, a typical finite-differences application dedicated to earthquake modeling. Our analysis reveals imbalance originating from the structure of the input data, and from low-level CPU optimizations. Ondes3D was successfully ported to AMPI/CHARM++ using over-decomposition and MPI process migration techniques to dynamically rebalance the load. However, this approach requires careful selection of the over-decomposition level, the load balancing algorithm, and its activation frequency. These choices are usually tied to application structure and platform characteristics. We have thus proposed a workflow that leverages the capabilities of SimGrid to conduct such study at low experimental cost. We rely on a combination of emulation, simulation, and application modeling that requires minimal code modification and manages to capture both spatial and temporal load imbalance to faithfully predict the performance of dynamic load balancing. We evaluate the quality of our simulation by comparing simulation results with the outcome of real executions and demonstrate how this approach can be used to quickly find the optimal load balancing configuration for a given application/hardware configuration.

• It is typical in High Performance Computing (HPC) courses to give students access to HPC platforms so that they can benefit from hands-on learning opportunities. Using such platforms, however, comes with logistical and pedagogical challenges. For instance, a logistical challenge is that access to representative platforms must be granted to students, which can be difficult for some institutions or course modalities; and a pedagogical challenge is that hands-on learning opportunities are constrained by the configurations of these platforms. A way to address these challenges is to instead simulate program executions on arbitrary HPC platform configurations. In [19] we focus on simulation in the specific context of distributed-memory computing and MPI programming education. While using simulation in this context has been explored in previous works, our approach offers two crucial advantages. First, students write standard MPI programs and can both debug and analyze the performance of their programs in simulation mode. Second, large-scale executions can be simulated in short amounts of time on a single standard laptop computer. This is possible thanks to SMPI, an MPI simulator provided as part of SimGrid. After detailing the challenges involved when using HPC platforms for HPC education and providing background information about SMPI, we present SMPI Courseware. SMPI Courseware is a set of in-simulation assignments that can be incorporated into HPC courses to provide students with hands-on experience for distributed-memory computing and MPI programming learning objectives. We describe some these assignments, highlighting how simulation with SMPI enhances the student learning experience.