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38 \title{Simulation of Asynchronous Iterative Numerical Algorithms Using SimGrid}
42 Charles Emile Ramamonjisoa and
45 Lilia Ziane Khodja and
49 Femto-ST Institute - DISC Department\\
50 Université de Franche-Comté\\
52 Email: \email{{raphael.couturier,arnaud.giersch,david.laiymani,charles.ramamonjisoa}@univ-fcomte.fr}
58 \AG{Ordre des autheurs pas définitif}
60 The abstract goes here.
63 \section{Introduction}
65 Parallel computing and high performance computing (HPC) are becoming
66 more and more imperative for solving various problems raised by
67 researchers on various scientific disciplines but also by industrial in
68 the field. Indeed, the increasing complexity of these requested
69 applications combined with a continuous increase of their sizes lead to
70 write distributed and parallel algorithms requiring significant hardware
71 resources (grid computing, clusters, broadband network, etc\dots{}) but
72 also a non-negligible CPU execution time. We consider in this paper a
73 class of highly efficient parallel algorithms called iterative executed
74 in a distributed environment. As their name suggests, these algorithm
75 solves a given problem that might be NP- complete complex by successive
76 iterations ($X_{n +1} = f(X_{n})$) from an initial value $X_{0}$ to find
77 an approximate value $X^*$ of the solution with a very low
78 residual error. Several well-known methods demonstrate the convergence
79 of these algorithms. Generally, to reduce the complexity and the
80 execution time, the problem is divided into several \emph{pieces} that will
81 be solved in parallel on multiple processing units. The latter will
82 communicate each intermediate results before a new iteration starts
83 until the approximate solution is reached. These distributed parallel
84 computations can be performed either in \emph{synchronous} communication mode
85 where a new iteration begin only when all nodes communications are
86 completed, either \emph{asynchronous} mode where processors can continue
87 independently without or few synchronization points. Despite the
88 effectiveness of iterative approach, a major drawback of the method is
89 the requirement of huge resources in terms of computing capacity,
90 storage and high speed communication network. Indeed, limited physical
91 resources are blocking factors for large-scale deployment of parallel
94 In recent years, the use of a simulation environment to execute parallel
95 iterative algorithms found some interests in reducing the highly cost of
96 access to computing resources: (1) for the applications development life
97 cycle and in code debugging (2) and in production to get results in a
98 reasonable execution time with a simulated infrastructure not accessible
99 with physical resources. Indeed, the launch of distributed iterative
100 asynchronous algorithms to solve a given problem on a large-scale
101 simulated environment challenges to find optimal configurations giving
102 the best results with a lowest residual error and in the best of
103 execution time. According our knowledge, no testing of large-scale
104 simulation of the class of algorithm solving to achieve real results has
105 been undertaken to date. We had in the scope of this work implemented a
106 program for solving large non-symmetric linear system of equations by
107 numerical method GMRES (Generalized Minimal Residual) in the simulation
108 environment SimGrid. The simulated platform had allowed us to launch
109 the application from a modest computing infrastructure by simulating
110 different distributed architectures composed by clusters nodes
111 interconnected by variable speed networks. In addition, it has been
112 permitted to show the effectiveness of asynchronous mode algorithm by
113 comparing its performance with the synchronous mode time. With selected
114 parameters on the network platforms (bandwidth, latency of inter cluster
115 network) and on the clusters architecture (number, capacity calculation
116 power) in the simulated environment, the experimental results have
117 demonstrated not only the algorithm convergence within a reasonable time
118 compared with the physical environment performance, but also a time
119 saving of up to \np[\%]{40} in asynchronous mode.
121 This article is structured as follows: after this introduction, the next
122 section will give a brief description of iterative asynchronous model.
123 Then, the simulation framework SimGrid will be presented with the
124 settings to create various distributed architectures. The algorithm of
125 the multi -splitting method used by GMRES written with MPI primitives
126 and its adaptation to SimGrid with SMPI (Simulated MPI) will be in the
127 next section. At last, the experiments results carried out will be
128 presented before the conclusion which we will announce the opening of
129 our future work after the results.
131 \section{The asynchronous iteration model}
133 Décrire le modèle asynchrone. Je m'en charge (DL)
137 Décrire SimGrid (Arnaud)
145 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
146 \section{Simulation of the multisplitting method}
147 %Décrire le problème (algo) traité ainsi que le processus d'adaptation à SimGrid.
148 Let $Ax=b$ be a large sparse system of $n$ linear equations in $\mathbb{R}$, where $A$ is a sparse square and nonsingular matrix, $x$ is the solution vector and $y$ is the right-hand side vector. We use a multisplitting method based on the block Jacobi partitioning to solve this linear system on a large scale platform composed of $L$ clusters of processors. In this case, we apply a row-by-row splitting without overlapping
150 \left(\begin{array}{ccc}
151 A_{11} & \cdots & A_{1L} \\
152 \vdots & \ddots & \vdots\\
153 A_{L1} & \cdots & A_{LL}
156 \left(\begin{array}{c}
162 \left(\begin{array}{c}
166 \end{array} \right)\]
167 in such a way that successive rows of matrix $A$ and both vectors $x$ and $b$ are assigned to one cluster, where for all $l,i\in\{1,\ldots,L\}$ $A_{li}$ is a rectangular block of $A$ of size $n_l\times n_i$, $X_l$ and $Y_l$ are sub-vectors of $x$ and $y$, respectively, each of size $n_l$ and $\sum_{l} n_l=\sum_{i} n_i=n$.
169 The multisplitting method proceeds by iteration to solve in parallel the linear system by $L$ clusters of processors, in such a way each sub-system
173 A_{ll}X_l = Y_l \mbox{,~such that}\\
174 Y_l = B_l - \displaystyle\sum_{i=1,i\neq l}^{L}A_{li}X_i,
179 is solved independently by a cluster and communication are required to update the right-hand side sub-vectors $Y_l$, such that the sub-vectors $X_i$ represent the data dependencies between the clusters. As each sub-system (\ref{eq:4.1}) is solved in parallel by a cluster of processors, our multisplitting method uses an iterative method as an inner solver which is easier to parallelize and more scalable than a direct method. In this work, we use the parallel GMRES method~\cite{ref1} which is one of the most used iterative method by many researchers.
182 \caption{A multisplitting solver with inner iteration GMRES method}
183 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
184 \Input $A_l$ (local sparse matrix), $B_l$ (local right-hand side), $x^0$ (initial guess)
185 \Output $X_l$ (local solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
186 \State Load $A_l$, $B_l$, $x^0$
187 \State Initialize the shared vector $\hat{x}=x^0$
188 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until the global convergence}
190 \State Inner iteration solver: \Call{InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k$}
191 \State Exchange the local solution ${X}_l^k$ with the neighboring clusters and copy the shared vector elements in $\hat{x}$
196 \Function {InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k$}
197 \State Compute the local right-hand side: $Y_l = B_l - \sum^L_{i=1,i\neq l}A_{li}X_i^0$
198 \State Solving the local splitting $A_{ll}X_l^k=Y_l$ using the parallel GMRES method, such that $X_l^0$ is the local initial guess
199 \State \Return $X_l^k$
204 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
213 \section{Experimental results}
215 When the ``real'' application runs in the simulation environment and produces
216 the expected results, varying the input parameters and the program arguments
217 allows us to compare outputs from the code execution. We have noticed from this
218 study that the results depend on the following parameters: (1) at the network
219 level, we found that the most critical values are the bandwidth (bw) and the
220 network latency (lat). (2) Hosts power (GFlops) can also influence on the
221 results. And finally, (3) when submitting job batches for execution, the
222 arguments values passed to the program like the maximum number of iterations or
223 the ``external'' precision are critical to ensure not only the convergence of the
224 algorithm but also to get the main objective of the experimentation of the
225 simulation in having an execution time in asynchronous less than in synchronous
226 mode, in others words, in having a ``speedup'' less than 1 (Speedup = Execution
227 time in synchronous mode / Execution time in asynchronous mode).
229 A priori, obtaining a speedup less than 1 would be difficult in a local area
230 network configuration where the synchronous mode will take advantage on the rapid
231 exchange of information on such high-speed links. Thus, the methodology adopted
232 was to launch the application on clustered network. In this last configuration,
233 degrading the inter-cluster network performance will \emph{penalize} the synchronous
234 mode allowing to get a speedup lower than 1. This action simulates the case of
235 clusters linked with long distance network like Internet.
237 As a first step, the algorithm was run on a network consisting of two clusters
238 containing fifty hosts each, totaling one hundred hosts. Various combinations of
239 the above factors have providing the results shown in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} with a matrix size
240 ranging from Nx = Ny = Nz = 62 to 171 elements or from $62^{3} = \np{238328}$ to
241 $171^{3} = \np{5211000}$ entries.
243 Then we have changed the network configuration using three clusters containing
244 respectively 33, 33 and 34 hosts, or again by on hundred hosts for all the
245 clusters. In the same way as above, a judicious choice of key parameters has
246 permitted to get the results in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} which shows the speedups less than 1 with
247 a matrix size from 62 to 100 elements.
249 In a final step, results of an execution attempt to scale up the three clustered
250 configuration but increasing by two hundreds hosts has been recorded in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
252 Note that the program was run with the following parameters:
254 \paragraph*{SMPI parameters}
257 \item HOSTFILE: Hosts file description.
258 \item PLATFORM: file description of the platform architecture : clusters (CPU power,
259 \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network (bandwidth bw,
260 lat latency, \dots{}).
264 \paragraph*{Arguments of the program}
267 \item Description of the cluster architecture;
268 \item Maximum number of internal and external iterations;
269 \item Internal and external precisions;
270 \item Matrix size NX, NY and NZ;
271 \item Matrix diagonal value = 6.0;
272 \item Execution Mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
277 \caption{2 clusters X 50 nodes}
278 \label{tab.cluster.2x50}
279 \AG{Les images manquent dans le dépôt Git. Si ce sont vraiment des tableaux, utiliser un format vectoriel (eps ou pdf), et surtout pas de jpeg!}
280 \includegraphics[width=209pt]{img1.jpg}
285 \caption{3 clusters X 33 nodes}
286 \label{tab.cluster.3x33}
287 \AG{Le fichier manque.}
288 \includegraphics[width=209pt]{img2.jpg}
293 \caption{3 clusters X 67 nodes}
294 \label{tab.cluster.3x67}
295 \AG{Le fichier manque.}
296 % \includegraphics[width=160pt]{img3.jpg}
297 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{img3.jpg}
300 \paragraph*{Interpretations and comments}
302 After analyzing the outputs, generally, for the configuration with two or three
303 clusters including one hundred hosts (Tables~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} and~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33}), some combinations of the
304 used parameters affecting the results have given a speedup less than 1, showing
305 the effectiveness of the asynchronous performance compared to the synchronous
308 In the case of a two clusters configuration, Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} shows that with a
309 deterioration of inter cluster network set with \np[Mbits/s]{5} of bandwidth, a latency
310 in order of a hundredth of a millisecond and a system power of one GFlops, an
311 efficiency of about \np[\%]{40} in asynchronous mode is obtained for a matrix size of 62
312 elements. It is noticed that the result remains stable even if we vary the
313 external precision from \np{E-5} to \np{E-9}. By increasing the problem size up to 100
314 elements, it was necessary to increase the CPU power of \np[\%]{50} to \np[GFlops]{1.5} for a
315 convergence of the algorithm with the same order of asynchronous mode efficiency.
316 Maintaining such a system power but this time, increasing network throughput
317 inter cluster up to \np[Mbits/s]{50}, the result of efficiency of about \np[\%]{40} is
318 obtained with high external precision of \np{E-11} for a matrix size from 110 to 150
321 For the 3 clusters architecture including a total of 100 hosts, Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} shows
322 that it was difficult to have a combination which gives an efficiency of
323 asynchronous below \np[\%]{80}. Indeed, for a matrix size of 62 elements, equality
324 between the performance of the two modes (synchronous and asynchronous) is
325 achieved with an inter cluster of \np[Mbits/s]{10} and a latency of \np{E-1} ms. To
326 challenge an efficiency by \np[\%]{78} with a matrix size of 100 points, it was
327 necessary to degrade the inter cluster network bandwidth from 5 to 2 Mbit/s.
329 A last attempt was made for a configuration of three clusters but more power
330 with 200 nodes in total. The convergence with a speedup of \np[\%]{90} was obtained
331 with a bandwidth of \np[Mbits/s]{1} as shown in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
335 \section*{Acknowledgment}
338 The authors would like to thank\dots{}
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