Quantifying architectural requirements of contemporary extreme-scale scientific applications

Jeffrey S. Vetter, Seyong Lee, Dong Li, Gabriel Marin, Collin McCurdy, Jeremy Meredith, Philip C. Roth, Kyle Spafford

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

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

As detailed in recent reports, HPC architectures will continue to change over the next decade in an effort to improve energy efficiency, reliability, and performance. At this time of significant disruption, it is critically important to understand specific application requirements, so that these architectural changes can include features that satisfy the requirements of contemporary extreme-scale scientific applications. To address this need, we have developed a methodology supported by a toolkit that allows us to investigate detailed computation, memory, and communication behaviors of applications at varying levels of resolution. Using this methodology, we performed a broad-based, detailed characterization of 12 contemporary scalable scientific applications and benchmarks. Our analysis reveals numerous behaviors that sometimes contradict conventional wisdom about scientific applications. For example, the results reveal that only one of our applications executes more floating-point instructions than other types of instructions. In another example, we found that communication topologies are very regular, even for applications that, at first glance, should be highly irregular. These observations emphasize the necessity of measurement-driven analysis of real applications, and help prioritize features that should be included in future architectures.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHigh Performance Computing Systems
Subtitle of host publicationPerformance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation - 4th International Workshop, PMBS 2013, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsStephen A. Jarvis, Steven A. Wright, Simon D. Hammond
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages3-24
Number of pages22
ISBN (Electronic)9783319102139
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Event4th International Workshop on Performance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation of High-Performance Computing Systems, PMBS 2013 - Denver, United States
Duration: Nov 18 2013Nov 18 2013

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume8551
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference4th International Workshop on Performance Modeling, Benchmarking and Simulation of High-Performance Computing Systems, PMBS 2013
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityDenver
Period11/18/1311/18/13

Funding

Support for this work was provided by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research. The work was performed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 to the U.S. Government. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.

FundersFunder number
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Science
Advanced Scientific Computing ResearchDE-AC05-00OR22725

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