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At least 37 records · Page 2

Towards Scalable Deep Learning via I/O Analysis and Optimization

Deep learning systems have been growing in prominence as a way to automatically characterize objects, trends, and anomalies. Given the importance of deep learning systems, researchers have been investigating techniques to optimize such systems. An area of particular interest has been using large supercomputing systems to quickly generate effective deep learning networks: a phase often referred to as “training” of the deep learning neural network. As we scale existing deep learning frameworks—such as Caffe—on these large supercomputing systems, we notice that the parallelism can help improve the computation tremendously, leaving data I/O as the major bottleneck limiting the overall system scalability. In this paper, we first present a detailed analysis of the performance bottlenecks of Caffe on large supercomputing systems. Our analysis shows that the I/O subsystem of Caffe—LMDB—relies on memory-mapped I/O to access its database, which can be highly inefficient on large-scale systems because of its interaction with the process scheduling system and the network-based parallel filesystem. Based on this analysis, we then present LMDBIO, our optimized I/O plugin for Caffe that takes into account the data access pattern of Caffe in order to vastly improve I/O performance. Our experimental results show that LMDBIO can improve the overall execution time of Caffe by nearly 20-fold in some cases.

Pumma, Sarunya↗

Effectively Using Remote I/O For Work Composition in Distributed Workflows

Distributed scientific workflows are becoming more important with the interest in incorporating AI into their loops. A critical programming and performance question is how to compose workflow tasks when data is produced on one system but must be consumed on another. Since the dominant technique is composition with remote I/O, this paper explores its performance expectations. We describe BigFlowSim, a workflow I/O simulator that captures key implementation choices for remote I/O, including intensity, reuse, locality, access pattern, and data movement.With BigFlowSim, we generate a synthetic benchmark. We quantify the effects of each parameter with a performance sensitivity study. We explain trends in terms of data movement reduction and show that, under certain conditions, it is possible to establish a total order among most parameters. We apply these insights to a high energy physics workflow, Belle II Monte Carlo and simulate several I/O optimizations. Speedups range from 5% to 2×, without changing compute time.

Friese, Ryan D.↗

A model for optimizing file access patterns using spatio-temporal parallelism

For many years now, I/O read time has been recognized as the primary bottleneck for parallel visualization and analysis of large-scale data. In this paper, we introduce a model that can estimate the read time for a file stored in a parallel filesystem when given the file access pattern. Read times ultimately depend on how the file is stored and the access pattern used to read the file. The file access pattern will be dictated by the type of parallel decomposition used. We employ spatio-temporal parallelism, which combines both spatial and temporal parallelism, to provide greater flexibility to possible file access patterns. Using our model, we were able to configure the spatio-temporal parallelism to design optimized read access patterns that resulted in a speedup factor of approximately 400 over traditional file access patterns.

Boonthanome, Nouanesengsy↗

Boosting RDataFrame performance with transparent bulk event processing

RDataFrame is ROOT’s high-level interface for Python and C++ data analysis. Since it first became available, RDataFrame adoption has grown steadily and it is now poised to be a major component of analysis software pipelines for LHC Run 3 and beyond. Thanks to its design inspired by declarative programming principles, RDataFrame enables the development of highperformance, highly parallel analyses without requiring expert knowledge of multi-threading and I/O: user logic is expressed in terms of self-contained, small computation kernels tied together by a high-level API. This design completely decouples analysis logic from its actual execution, and opens several interesting avenues for workflow optimization. In particular, in this work we explore the benefits of moving internal data processing from an event-by-event to a bulkby-bulk loop. This refactoring dramatically reduces the framework’s runtime overheads; in collaboration with the I/O layer it improves data access patterns; it exposes information that optimizing compilers might use to auto-vectorize the invocation of user-defined computations; finally, while existing user-facing interfaces remain unaffected, it becomes possible to additionally offer interfaces that explicitly expose bulks of events, useful e.g. for the injection of GPU kernels into the analysis workflow. In order to inform similar future R&D, design challenges will be presented, as well as an investigation of the relevant timememory trade-off backed by novel performance benchmarks.

Guiraud, Enrico↗

PARLO: PArallel Run-Time Layout Optimization for Scientific Data Explorations with Heterogeneous Access Patterns

The size and scope of cutting-edge scientific simulations are growing much faster than the I/O and storage capabilities of their run-time environments. The growing gap is exacerbated by exploratory, data-intensive analytics, such as querying simulation data with multivariate, spatio-temporal constraints, which induces heterogeneous access patterns that stress the performance of the underlying storage system. Previous work addresses data layout and indexing techniques to improve query performance for a single access pattern, which is not sufficient for complex analytics jobs. We present PARLO a parallel run-time layout optimization framework, to achieve multi-level data layout optimization for scientific applications at run-time before data is written to storage. The layout schemes optimize for heterogeneous access patterns with user-specified priorities. PARLO is integrated with ADIOS, a high-performance parallel I/O middleware for large-scale HPC applications, to achieve user-transparent, light-weight layout optimization for scientific datasets. It offers simple XML-based configuration for users to achieve flexible layout optimization without the need to modify or recompile application codes. Experiments show that PARLO improves performance by 2 to 26 times for queries with heterogeneous access patterns compared to state-of-the-art scientific database management systems. Compared to traditional post-processing approaches, its underlying run-time layout optimization achieves a 56% savings in processing time and a reduction in storage overhead of up to 50%. PARLO also exhibits a low run-time resource requirement, while also limiting the performance impact on running applications to a reasonable level.

Computer Science↗

Performance analysis of Darshan 2.2.3 on the Cray XE6 platform

Darshan is a production-quality I/O characteriza tion tool that captures and summarizes the I/O behavior of parallel applications. It records a variety of information with minimal overhead, including access patterns, number of files accessed, and the amount of time consumed by I/O routines. Darshan’s lightweight design makes it suitable for full-time deployment for workload characterization of large HPC systems.

Carns, Philip↗

PARLO: PArallel Run-Time Layout Optimization for Scientific Data Explorations with Heterogeneous Access Pattern

Download Citation Email Print Request Permissions Save to Project The size and scope of cutting-edge scientific simulations are growing much faster than the I/O and storage capabilities of their run-time environments. The growing gap is exacerbated by exploratory, data-intensive analytics, such as querying simulation data with multivariate, spatio-temporal constraints, which induces heterogeneous access patterns that stress the performance of the underlying storage system. Previous work addresses data layout and indexing techniques to improve query performance for a single access pattern, which is not sufficient for complex analytics jobs. We present PARLO a parallel run-time layout optimization framework, to achieve multi-level data layout optimization for scientific applications at run-time before data is written to storage. The layout schemes optimize for heterogeneous access patterns with user-specified priorities. PARLO is integrated with ADIOS, a high-performance parallel I/O middleware for large-scale HPC applications, to achieve user-transparent, light-weight layout optimization for scientific datasets. It offers simple XML-based configuration for users to achieve flexible layout optimization without the need to modify or recompile application codes. Experiments show that PARLO improves performance by 2 to 26 times for queries with heterogeneous access patterns compared to state-of-the-art scientific database management systems. Compared to traditional post-processing approaches, its underlying run-time layout optimization achieves a 56% savings in processing time and a reduction in storage overhead of up to 50%. PARLO also exhibits a low run-time resource requirement, while also limiting the performance impact on running applications to a reasonable level.

Gong, Zhenhuan↗

Characterizing parallel file-access patterns on a large-scale multiprocessor

Rapid increases in the computational speeds of multiprocessors have not been matched by corresponding performance enhancements in the I/O subsystem. To satisfy the large and growing I/O requirements of some parallel scientific applications, we need parallel file systems that can provide high-bandwidth and high-volume data transfer between the I/O subsystem and thousands of processors. Design of such high-performance parallel file systems depends on a thorough grasp of the expected workload. So far there have been no comprehensive usage studies of multiprocessor file systems. Our CHARISMA project intends to fill this void. The first results from our study involve an iPSC/860 at NASA Ames. This paper presents results from a different platform, the CM-5 at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The CHARISMA studies are unique because we collect information about every individual read and write request and about the entire mix of applications running on the machines. The results of our trace analysis lead to recommendations for parallel file system design. First the file system should support efficient concurrent access to many files, and I/O requests from many jobs under varying load conditions. Second, it must efficiently manage large files kept open for long periods. Third, it should expect to see small requests predominantly sequential access patterns, application-wide synchronous access, no concurrent file-sharing between jobs appreciable byte and block sharing between processes within jobs, and strong interprocess locality. Finally, the trace data suggest that node-level write caches and collective I/O request interfaces may be useful in certain environments.

Purakayastha, Apratim↗

Analyzing File Access Patterns on Large-Scale HPC Systems: Opportunities for File Prefetching

This paper explores the potential opportunities for implementing file prefetching techniques on large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Specifically, we investigate the file access patterns of various applications across multiple scientific domains using two years' worth of Darshan I/O traces obtained from the Summit supercomputer. We identify recurring trends and patterns which indicate that prefetching can be effectively leveraged to improve data access performance on HPC systems. This study serves as a valuable reference for system architects and developers in the HPC community, providing insights into the opportunities and challenges associated with enabling file prefetching on large-scale HPC systems.

Karimi, Ahmad Maroof↗

Understanding and Leveraging the I/O Patterns of Emerging Machine Learning Analytics

The scientific community is currently experiencing unprecedented amounts of data generated by cutting-edge science facilities. Soon facilities will be producing up to 1 PB/s which will force scientist to use more autonomous techniques to learn from the data. The adoption of machine learning methods, like deep learning techniques, in large-scale workflows comes with a shift in the workflow’s computational and I/O patterns. These changes often include iterative processes and model architecture searches, in which datasets are analyzed multiple times in different formats with different model configurations in order to find accurate, reliable and efficient learning models. This shift in behavior brings changes in I/O patterns at the application level as well at the system level. These changes also bring new challenges for the HPC I/O teams, since these patterns contain more complex I/O workloads. In this paper we discuss the I/O patterns experienced by emerging analytical codes that rely on machine learning algorithms and highlight the challenges in designing efficient I/O transfers for such workflows. We comment on how to leverage the data access patterns in order to fetch in a more efficient way the required input data in the format and order given by the needs of the application and how to optimize the data path between collaborative processes. We will motivate our work and show performance gains with a study case of medical applications.

Gainaru, Ana↗

A model for optimizing file access patterns using spatio-temporal parallelism. In: UltraVis '13 Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Ultrascale Visualization, Article No. 4

For many years now, I/O read time has been recognized as the primary bottleneck for parallel visualization and analysis of large-scale data. In this paper, we introduce a model that can estimate the read time for a file stored in a parallel filesystem when given the file access pattern. Read times ultimately depend on how the file is stored and the access pattern used to read the file. The file access pattern will be dictated by the type of parallel decomposition used. We employ spatio-temporal parallelism, which combines both spatial and temporal parallelism, to provide greater flexibility to possible file access patterns. Using our model, we were able to configure the spatio-temporal parallelism to design optimized read access patterns that resulted in a speedup factor of approximately 400 over traditional file access patterns.

Nouanesengsy, Boonthanome↗

Characterizing parallel file-access patterns on a large-scale multiprocessor

High-performance parallel file systems are needed to satisfy tremendous I/O requirements of parallel scientific applications. The design of such high-performance parallel file systems depends on a comprehensive understanding of the expected workload, but so far there have been very few usage studies of multiprocessor file systems. This paper is part of the CHARISMA project, which intends to fill this void by measuring real file-system workloads on various production parallel machines. In particular, we present results from the CM-5 at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Our results are unique because we collect information about nearly every individual I/O request from the mix of jobs running on the machine. Analysis of the traces leads to various recommendations for parallel file-system design.

Purakayastha, A.↗

April 2020 Darshan counters from the Summit supercomputer

This dataset is the Darshan counters collected from the Summit supercomputer in a month of April 2020. 1. Description of methods used for collection/generation of data: Job submitted on Summit HPC system when completed successfully and has made I/O calls (captured by Darshan tool) writes a Darshan log file on alpine filesystem. One job can have multiple `jsrun` commands and Darshan will generate separate logs each log corresponding to an `jsrun` command, so a job can have one or more Darshan logs associated with it. 2. Methods for processing the data: To process the data, we first use `darshan-util` tool to parse the Darshan logs. Then we restructure the logs and merge data from multiple Darshan logs if they belong to the same Summit job.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Efficient Data Management in Neutron Scattering Data Reduction Workflows at ORNL

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) experimental neutron science facilities produce 1.2 TB a day of raw event-based data that is stored using the standard metadata-rich NeXus schema built on top of the HDF5 file format. Performance of several data reduction workflows is largely determined by the amount of time spent on the loading and processing algorithms in Mantid, an open-source data analysis framework used across several neutron sciences facilities around the world. The present work introduces new data management algorithms to address identified input output (I/O) bottlenecks on Mantid. First, we introduce an in-memory binary-tree metadata index that resemble NeXus data access patterns to provide a scalable search and extraction mechanism. Second, data encapsulation in Mantid algorithms is optimally redesigned to reduce the total compute and memory runtime footprint associated with metadata I/O reconstruction tasks. Results from this work show speed ups in wall-clock time on ORNL data reduction workflows, ranging from 11% to 30% depending on the complexity of the targeted instrument-specific data. Nevertheless, we highlight the need for more research to address reduction challenges as experimental data volumes increase.

Godoy, William↗

TAZeR: Hiding the Cost of Remote I/O in Distributed Scientific Workflows

A perennial bottleneck in distributed workflow analytics is long access latencies for remote data. We ask the question: assuming that data must be accessed remotely, can latencies be hidden? We present TAZeR, a framework that reduces data access latency while increasing data reuse. TAZeR transparently converts POSIX I/O into operations that interleave application work with data transfer, i.e. read, prefetching, and write stage-out. TAZeR ensures read data moves directly to application memory without synchronous intervention (soft zero-copy). TAZeR uses distributed bandwidth-aware staging to exploit reuse across application tasks and to manage the capacity constraints of fast hierarchical storage. We evaluate TAZeR on a High Energy Physics workflow that requests remote data at 48 Gb/s (over two 1 Gb/s WAN links) using complex access patterns. TAZeR is 12× and 22× faster than XRootD (state-of-the-art) and file copies (current approach), respectively; and within 7% of optimal. We discuss conditions when TAZeR can hide I/O accesses; and evaluate performance as effective staging sizes change.

Tazer, remote I/O, data staging↗

Mochi: Composing Data Services for High-Performance Computing Environments

Technology enhancements and the growing breadth of application workflows running on high-performance computing (HPC) platforms drive the development of new data services that provide high performance on these new platforms, provide capable and productive interfaces and abstractions for a variety of applications, and are readily adapted when new technologies are deployed. The Mochi framework enables composition of specialized distributed data services from a collection of connectable modules and subservices. Rather than forcing all applications to use a one-size-fits-all data staging and I/O software configuration, Mochi allows each application to use a data service specialized to its needs and access patterns. This paper introduces the Mochi framework and methodology. The Mochi core components and microservices are described. Examples of the application of the Mochi methodology to the development of four specialized services are detailed. Finally, a performance evaluation of a Mochi core component, a Mochi microservice, and a composed service providing an object model is performed. The paper concludes by positioning Mochi relative to related work in the HPC space and indicating directions for future work.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Position Papers for the ASCR Workshop on the Management and Storage of Scientific Data

The purpose of this workshop is to identify priority research directions in the area of data management for high-performance and scientific computing above and beyond HPC’s traditional "the parallel file system is the data-management system" model. Supporting the breadth of the DOE mission, including the explosion of AI uses and the growing needs of experimental and observational science, motivates revisiting our assumptions about data management. There are many facets of this topic to explore including: (1) Interfaces for accessing data that resides on traditional persistent storage as well as memory devices; (2) Storage-system architecture design that supports scientific workflows on varied hierarchical storage and networking devices; (3) Devising metadata management infrastructure to support FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability); (4) Capturing provenance information about scientific data; (5) Utilizing AI to learn I/O patterns of emerging workloads for efficient data management; (6) Providing data management support for AI and complex workflows; and (7) Understanding the overlap between traditional storage systems and I/O (SSIO) efforts and data management. While the program committee has identified these topics as important areas for discussion, we welcome position papers from the community that propose additional topics of interest for discussion at the workshop. The workshop agenda will include breakout sessions for discussing these and selected topic areas to inform priority research directions for data management for high-performance and scientific computing.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Report for the ASCR Workshop on the Management and Storage of Scientific Data

The purpose of this workshop is to identify priority research directions in the area of data management for high-performance and scientific computing above and beyond HPC’s traditional "the parallel file system is the data-management system" model. Supporting the breadth of the DOE mission, including the explosion of AI uses and the growing needs of experimental and observational science, motivates revisiting our assumptions about data management. There are many facets of this topic to explore including: (1) Interfaces for accessing data that resides on traditional persistent storage as well as memory devices; (2) Storage-system architecture design that supports scientific workflows on varied hierarchical storage and networking devices; (3) Devising metadata management infrastructure to support FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability); (4) Capturing provenance information about scientific data; (5) Utilizing AI to learn I/O patterns of emerging workloads for efficient data management; (6) Providing data management support for AI and complex workflows; and (7) Understanding the overlap between traditional storage systems and I/O (SSIO) efforts and data management. While the program committee has identified these topics as important areas for discussion, we welcome position papers from the community that propose additional topics of interest for discussion at the workshop. The workshop agenda will include breakout sessions for discussing these and selected topic areas to inform priority research directions for data management for high-performance and scientific computing.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗