BlackjackBench: Portable hardware characterization

Anthony Danalis, Piotr Luszczek, Jack Dongarra, Gabriel Marin, S. Vetter

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

DARPA's AACE project aimed to develop Architecture Aware Compiler Environments that automatically characterize the hardware and optimize the application codes accordingly. We present the BlackjackBench suite, a collection of portable micro-benchmarks that automate system characterization, plus statistical analysis techniques for interpreting the results. The BlackjackBench discovers the effective sizes and speeds of the hardware environment rather than the often unattainable peak values. We aim at hardware features that can be observed by running executables generated by existing compilers from standard C codes. We characterize the memory hierarchy, including cache sharing and NUMA characteristics of the system, properties of the processing cores affecting execution speed, and the length of the OS scheduler time slot. We show how these features of modern multicores can be discovered programmatically. We also show how the features could interfere with each other resulting in incorrect interpretation of the results, and how established classification and statistical analysis techniques reduce experimental noise and aid automatic interpretation of results.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPMBS'11 - Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Performance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation of High Performance Computing Systems, Co-located with SC'11
Pages7-8
Number of pages2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011
Externally publishedYes
Event2nd Int. Workshop on Performance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation of High Performance Computing Systems, PMBS'11, Held as Part of the 24th ACM/IEEE International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, SC'11 - Seattle, WA, United States
Duration: Nov 13 2011Nov 13 2011

Publication series

NamePMBS'11 - Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Performance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation of High Performance Computing Systems, Co-located with SC'11

Conference

Conference2nd Int. Workshop on Performance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation of High Performance Computing Systems, PMBS'11, Held as Part of the 24th ACM/IEEE International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, SC'11
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySeattle, WA
Period11/13/1111/13/11

Keywords

  • Hardware characterization
  • Micro-benchmarks
  • Statistical analysis

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'BlackjackBench: Portable hardware characterization'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this