Communication characteristics of large-scale scientific applications for contemporary cluster architectures

J. S. Vetter, F. Mueller

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

78 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper examines the explicit communication characteristics of several sophisticated scientific applications, which, by themselves, constitute a representative suite of publicly available benchmarks for large cluster architectures. By focusing on the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and by using hardware counters on the microprocessor, we observe each application's inherent behavioral characteristics: point-to-point and collective communication, and floating point operations. Furthermore, we explore the sensitivities of these characteristics to both problem size and number of processors. Our analysis reveals several striking similarities across our diverse set of applications including the use of collective operations, especially those collectives with very small data payloads. We also highlight a trend of novel applications parting with regimented, static communication patterns in favor of dynamically evolving patterns, as evidenced by our experiments on applications that use implicit linear solvers and adaptive mesh refinement. Overall, our study contributes a better understanding or the requirements of current and emerging paradigms of scientific computing in terms of their computation and communication demands.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2002
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages272-281
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)0769515738, 9780769515731
DOIs
StatePublished - 2002
Externally publishedYes
Event16th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2002 - Ft. Lauderdale, United States
Duration: Apr 15 2002Apr 19 2002

Publication series

NameProceedings - International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2002

Conference

Conference16th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, IPDPS 2002
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityFt. Lauderdale
Period04/15/0204/19/02

Funding

We thank Mark Seager, Bob Lucas, and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. We also thank Andy Wissink for creating the shock tube problem for SAMRAI. The anonymous reviewers also helped improve the quality of the paper. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of Energy by University of California LLNL under contract W-7405-Eng-48. LLNL Document Number UCRL-JC-143483.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Communication characteristics of large-scale scientific applications for contemporary cluster architectures'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this