Intuitive Visualizations Through Multi-Domain Projections for Performance Analysis at Scale

Abstract

Performance analysis of parallel scientific codes is becoming increasingly difficult due to the rapidly growing complexity of applications and architectures. Existing tools fall short in providing intuitive views to reveal the root causes of performance problems. We have developed a new paradigm of projecting and visualizing performance data obtained from one domain onto other domains for faster, more intuitive analysis of applications. We gather performance data in three domains: hardware, application, and communication. For each domain, we define projections that allow the data to be viewed in the other domains. This framework is called the HAC model. The model not only allows us to directly compare the data across domains, but also allows us to use data visualization and analysis tools available in the other domains. Using the methodologies and visualization techniques mentioned above, we have demonstrated the careful unscrambling of otherwise tangled measurements caused by adaptive systems. By attributing performance measurements directly to their causes, we are able to visualize performance measurements in the domains most intuitive to the user, which are not necessarily those in which measurements are collected.