Results for “non-contiguous allocation”

DOE OSTI2019

Geometric Mapping of Tasks to Processors on Parallel Computers with Mesh or Torus Networks

We present a new method for reducing parallel applications' communication time by mapping their MPI tasks to processors in a way that lowers the distance messages travel and the amount of congestion in the network. Assuming geometric proximity among the tasks is a good approximation of their communication interdependence, we use a geometric partitioning algorithm to order both the tasks and the processors, assigning task parts to the corresponding processor parts. In this way, interdependent tasks are assigned to “nearby” cores in the network. We also present a number of algorithmic optimizations that exploit specific features of the network or application to further improve the quality of the mapping. We specifically address the case of sparse node allocation, where the nodes assigned to a job are not necessarily located in a contiguous block nor within close proximity to each other in the network. Furthermore, our methods generalize to contiguous allocations as well, and results are shown for both contiguous and non-contiguous allocations. We show that, for the structured finite difference mini-application MiniGhost, our mapping methods reduced communication time up to 75% relative to MiniGhost's default mapping on 128K cores of a Cray XK7 with sparse allocation. For the atmospheric modeling code E3SM/HOMME, our methods reduced communication time up to 31% on 16K cores of an IBM BlueGene/Q with contiguous allocation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2015

Local search to improve coordinate-based task mapping

We present a local search strategy to improve the coordinate-based mapping of a parallel job’s tasks to the MPI ranks of its parallel allocation in order to reduce network congestion and the job’s communication time. The goal is to reduce the number of network hops between communicating pairs of ranks. Our target is applications with a nearest-neighbor stencil communication pattern running on mesh systems with non-contiguous processor allocation, such as Cray XE and XK Systems. Utilizing the miniGhost mini-app, which models the shock physics application CTH, we demonstrate that our strategy reduces application running time while also reducing the runtime variability. Furthermore, we further show that mapping quality can vary based on the selected allocation algorithm, even between allocation algorithms of similar apparent quality.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2016

Communication Characterization and Optimization of Applications Using Topology-Aware Task Mapping on Large Supercomputers

On large supercomputers, the job scheduling systems may assign a non-contiguous node allocation for user applications depending on available resources. With parallel applications using MPI (Message Passing Interface), the default process ordering does not take into account the actual physical node layout available to the application. This contributes to non-locality in terms of physical network topology and impacts communication performance of the application. In order to mitigate such performance penalties, this work describes techniques to identify suitable task mapping that takes the layout of the allocated nodes as well as the application's communication behavior into account. During the first phase of this research, we instrumented and collected performance data to characterize communication behavior of critical US DOE (United States - Department of Energy) applications using an augmented version of the mpiP tool. Subsequently, we developed several reordering methods (spectral bisection, neighbor join tree etc.) to combine node layout and application communication data for optimized task placement. We developed a tool called mpiAproxy to facilitate detailed evaluation of the various reordering algorithms without requiring full application executions. This work presents a comprehensive performance evaluation (14,000 experiments) of the various task mapping techniques in lowering communication costs on Titan, the leadership class supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2016

Communication Characterization and Optimization of Applications Using Topology-Aware Task Mapping on Large Supercomputers

On large supercomputers, the job scheduling systems may assign a non-contiguous node allocation for user applications depending on available resources. With parallel applications using MPI (Message Passing Interface), the default process ordering does not take into account the actual physical node layout available to the application. This contributes to non-locality in terms of physical network topology and impacts communication performance of the application. In order to mitigate such performance penalties, this work describes techniques to identify suitable task mapping that takes the layout of the allocated nodes as well as the application's communication behavior into account. During the first phase of this research, we instrumented and collected performance data to characterize communication behavior of critical US DOE (United States - Department of Energy) applications using an augmented version of the mpiP tool. Subsequently, we developed several reordering methods (spectral bisection, neighbor join tree etc.) to combine node layout and application communication data for optimized task placement. We developed a tool called mpiAproxy to facilitate detailed evaluation of the various reordering algorithms without requiring full application executions. This work presents a comprehensive performance evaluation (14,000 experiments) of the various task mapping techniques in lowering communication costs on Titan, the leadership class supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Sreepathi, Sarat↗