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44 \title{Simulation of Asynchronous Iterative Numerical Algorithms Using SimGrid}
48 Charles Emile Ramamonjisoa and
51 Lilia Ziane Khodja and
55 Femto-ST Institute - DISC Department\\
56 Université de Franche-Comté\\
58 Email: \email{{raphael.couturier,arnaud.giersch,david.laiymani,charles.ramamonjisoa}@univ-fcomte.fr}
64 \RC{Ordre des autheurs pas définitif.}
65 \LZK{Adresse de Lilia: Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, 200 Avenue de la Vieille Tour, 33405 Talence Cedex, France \\ Email: lilia.ziane@inria.fr}
69 In recent years, the scalability of large-scale implementation in a
70 distributed environment of algorithms becoming more and more complex has
71 always been hampered by the limits of physical computing resources
72 capacity. One solution is to run the program in a virtual environment
73 simulating a real interconnected computers architecture. The results are
74 convincing and useful solutions are obtained with far fewer resources
75 than in a real platform. However, challenges remain for the convergence
76 and efficiency of a class of algorithms that concern us here, namely
77 numerical parallel iterative algorithms executed in asynchronous mode,
78 especially in a large scale level. Actually, such algorithm requires a
79 balance and a compromise between computation and communication time
80 during the execution. Two important factors determine the success of the
81 experimentation: the convergence of the iterative algorithm on a large
82 scale and the execution time reduction in asynchronous mode. Once again,
83 from the current work, a simulated environment like Simgrid provides
84 accurate results which are difficult or even impossible to obtain in a
85 physical platform by exploiting the flexibility of the simulator on the
86 computing units clusters and the network structure design. Our
87 experimental outputs showed a saving of up to 40 \% for the algorithm
88 execution time in asynchronous mode compared to the synchronous one with
89 a residual precision up to E-11. Such successful results open
90 perspectives on experimentations for running the algorithm on a
91 simulated large scale growing environment and with larger problem size.
93 Keywords : Algorithm distributed iterative asynchronous simulation
98 \section{Introduction}
100 Parallel computing and high performance computing (HPC) are becoming
101 more and more imperative for solving various problems raised by
102 researchers on various scientific disciplines but also by industrial in
103 the field. Indeed, the increasing complexity of these requested
104 applications combined with a continuous increase of their sizes lead to
105 write distributed and parallel algorithms requiring significant hardware
106 resources (grid computing, clusters, broadband network, etc\dots{}) but
107 also a non-negligible CPU execution time. We consider in this paper a
108 class of highly efficient parallel algorithms called iterative executed
109 in a distributed environment. As their name suggests, these algorithm
110 solves a given problem that might be NP- complete complex by successive
111 iterations ($X_{n +1} = f(X_{n})$) from an initial value $X_{0}$ to find
112 an approximate value $X^*$ of the solution with a very low
113 residual error. Several well-known methods demonstrate the convergence
114 of these algorithms. Generally, to reduce the complexity and the
115 execution time, the problem is divided into several \emph{pieces} that will
116 be solved in parallel on multiple processing units. The latter will
117 communicate each intermediate results before a new iteration starts
118 until the approximate solution is reached. These distributed parallel
119 computations can be performed either in \emph{synchronous} communication mode
120 where a new iteration begin only when all nodes communications are
121 completed, either \emph{asynchronous} mode where processors can continue
122 independently without or few synchronization points. Despite the
123 effectiveness of iterative approach, a major drawback of the method is
124 the requirement of huge resources in terms of computing capacity,
125 storage and high speed communication network. Indeed, limited physical
126 resources are blocking factors for large-scale deployment of parallel
129 In recent years, the use of a simulation environment to execute parallel
130 iterative algorithms found some interests in reducing the highly cost of
131 access to computing resources: (1) for the applications development life
132 cycle and in code debugging (2) and in production to get results in a
133 reasonable execution time with a simulated infrastructure not accessible
134 with physical resources. Indeed, the launch of distributed iterative
135 asynchronous algorithms to solve a given problem on a large-scale
136 simulated environment challenges to find optimal configurations giving
137 the best results with a lowest residual error and in the best of
138 execution time. According our knowledge, no testing of large-scale
139 simulation of the class of algorithm solving to achieve real results has
140 been undertaken to date. We had in the scope of this work implemented a
141 program for solving large non-symmetric linear system of equations by
142 numerical method GMRES (Generalized Minimal Residual) in the simulation
143 environment SimGrid. The simulated platform had allowed us to launch
144 the application from a modest computing infrastructure by simulating
145 different distributed architectures composed by clusters nodes
146 interconnected by variable speed networks. In addition, it has been
147 permitted to show the effectiveness of asynchronous mode algorithm by
148 comparing its performance with the synchronous mode time. With selected
149 parameters on the network platforms (bandwidth, latency of inter cluster
150 network) and on the clusters architecture (number, capacity calculation
151 power) in the simulated environment, the experimental results have
152 demonstrated not only the algorithm convergence within a reasonable time
153 compared with the physical environment performance, but also a time
154 saving of up to \np[\%]{40} in asynchronous mode.
156 This article is structured as follows: after this introduction, the next
157 section will give a brief description of iterative asynchronous model.
158 Then, the simulation framework SimGrid will be presented with the
159 settings to create various distributed architectures. The algorithm of
160 the multi -splitting method used by GMRES written with MPI primitives
161 and its adaptation to SimGrid with SMPI (Simulated MPI) will be in the
162 next section. At last, the experiments results carried out will be
163 presented before the conclusion which we will announce the opening of
164 our future work after the results.
166 \section{The asynchronous iteration model}
168 Décrire le modèle asynchrone. Je m'en charge (DL)
172 Décrire SimGrid~\cite{casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid} (Arnaud)
180 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
181 \section{Simulation of the multisplitting method}
182 %Décrire le problème (algo) traité ainsi que le processus d'adaptation à SimGrid.
183 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 $b$ is the right-hand side vector. We use a multisplitting method based on the block Jacobi splitting 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
185 \left(\begin{array}{ccc}
186 A_{11} & \cdots & A_{1L} \\
187 \vdots & \ddots & \vdots\\
188 A_{L1} & \cdots & A_{LL}
191 \left(\begin{array}{c}
197 \left(\begin{array}{c}
201 \end{array} \right)\]
202 in such a way that successive rows of matrix $A$ and both vectors $x$ and $b$ are assigned to one cluster, where for all $l,m\in\{1,\ldots,L\}$ $A_{lm}$ is a rectangular block of $A$ of size $n_l\times n_m$, $X_l$ and $B_l$ are sub-vectors of $x$ and $b$, respectively, each of size $n_l$ and $\sum_{l} n_l=\sum_{m} n_m=n$.
204 The multisplitting method proceeds by iteration to solve in parallel the linear system on $L$ clusters of processors, in such a way each sub-system
208 A_{ll}X_l = Y_l \mbox{,~such that}\\
209 Y_l = B_l - \displaystyle\sum_{\substack{m=1\\ m\neq l}}^{L}A_{lm}X_m
214 is solved independently by a cluster and communications are required to update the right-hand side sub-vector $Y_l$, such that the sub-vectors $X_m$ 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 algorithm of GMRES method~\cite{ref1} which is one of the most used iterative method by many researchers.
217 \caption{A multisplitting solver with GMRES method}
218 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
219 \Input $A_l$ (sparse sub-matrix), $B_l$ (right-hand side sub-vector)
220 \Output $X_l$ (solution sub-vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
221 \State Load $A_l$, $B_l$
222 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
223 \For {$k=0,1,2,\ldots$ until the global convergence}
224 \State Restart outer iteration with $x^0=x^k$
225 \State Inner iteration: \Call{InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k+1$}
226 \State Send shared elements of $X_l^{k+1}$ to neighboring clusters
227 \State Receive shared elements in $\{X_m^{k+1}\}_{m\neq l}$
232 \Function {InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k$}
233 \State Compute local right-hand side $Y_l$: \[Y_l = B_l - \sum\nolimits^L_{\substack{m=1 \\m\neq l}}A_{lm}X_m^0\]
234 \State Solving sub-system $A_{ll}X_l^k=Y_l$ with the parallel GMRES method
235 \State \Return $X_l^k$
241 Algorithm~\ref{algo:01} shows the main key points of the multisplitting method to solve a large sparse linear system. This algorithm is based on an outer-inner iteration method where the parallel synchronous GMRES method is used to solve the inner iteration. It is executed in parallel by each cluster of processors. For all $l,m\in\{1,\ldots,L\}$, the matrices and vectors with the subscript $l$ represent the local data for cluster $l$, while $\{A_{lm}\}_{m\neq l}$ are off-diagonal matrices of sparse matrix $A$ and $\{X_m\}_{m\neq l}$ contain vector elements of solution $x$ shared with neighboring clusters. At every outer iteration $k$, asynchronous communications are performed between processors of the local cluster and those of distant clusters (lines $6$ and $7$ in Algorithm~\ref{algo:01}). The shared vector elements of the solution $x$ are exchanged by message passing using MPI non-blocking communication routines.
245 \includegraphics[width=60mm,keepaspectratio]{clustering}
246 \caption{Example of three clusters of processors interconnected by a virtual unidirectional ring network.}
250 The global convergence of the asynchronous multisplitting solver is detected when the clusters of processors have all converged locally. We implemented the global convergence detection process as follows. On each cluster a master processor is designated (for example the processor with rank $1$) and masters of all clusters are interconnected by a virtual unidirectional ring network (see Figure~\ref{fig:4.1}). During the resolution, a Boolean token circulates around the virtual ring from a master processor to another until the global convergence is achieved. So starting from the cluster with rank $1$, each master processor $i$ sets the token to {\it True} if the local convergence is achieved or to {\it False} otherwise, and sends it to master processor $i+1$. Finally, the global convergence is detected when the master of cluster $1$ receives from the master of cluster $L$ a token set to {\it True}. In this case, the master of cluster $1$ broadcasts a stop message to masters of other clusters. In this work, the local convergence on each cluster $l$ is detected when the following condition is satisfied
251 \[(k\leq \MI) \mbox{~or~} (\|X_l^k - X_l^{k+1}\|_{\infty}\leq\epsilon)\]
252 where $\MI$ is the maximum number of outer iterations and $\epsilon$ is the tolerance threshold of the error computed between two successive local solution $X_l^k$ and $X_l^{k+1}$.
254 \LZK{Description du processus d'adaptation de l'algo multisplitting à SimGrid}
255 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
264 \section{Experimental results}
266 When the ``real'' application runs in the simulation environment and produces
267 the expected results, varying the input parameters and the program arguments
268 allows us to compare outputs from the code execution. We have noticed from this
269 study that the results depend on the following parameters: (1) at the network
270 level, we found that the most critical values are the bandwidth (bw) and the
271 network latency (lat). (2) Hosts power (GFlops) can also influence on the
272 results. And finally, (3) when submitting job batches for execution, the
273 arguments values passed to the program like the maximum number of iterations or
274 the ``external'' precision are critical to ensure not only the convergence of the
275 algorithm but also to get the main objective of the experimentation of the
276 simulation in having an execution time in asynchronous less than in synchronous
277 mode, in others words, in having a ``speedup'' less than 1 (Speedup = Execution
278 time in synchronous mode / Execution time in asynchronous mode).
280 A priori, obtaining a speedup less than 1 would be difficult in a local area
281 network configuration where the synchronous mode will take advantage on the rapid
282 exchange of information on such high-speed links. Thus, the methodology adopted
283 was to launch the application on clustered network. In this last configuration,
284 degrading the inter-cluster network performance will \emph{penalize} the synchronous
285 mode allowing to get a speedup lower than 1. This action simulates the case of
286 clusters linked with long distance network like Internet.
288 As a first step, the algorithm was run on a network consisting of two clusters
289 containing fifty hosts each, totaling one hundred hosts. Various combinations of
290 the above factors have providing the results shown in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} with a matrix size
291 ranging from Nx = Ny = Nz = 62 to 171 elements or from $62^{3} = \np{238328}$ to
292 $171^{3} = \np{5211000}$ entries.
294 Then we have changed the network configuration using three clusters containing
295 respectively 33, 33 and 34 hosts, or again by on hundred hosts for all the
296 clusters. In the same way as above, a judicious choice of key parameters has
297 permitted to get the results in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} which shows the speedups less than 1 with
298 a matrix size from 62 to 100 elements.
300 In a final step, results of an execution attempt to scale up the three clustered
301 configuration but increasing by two hundreds hosts has been recorded in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
303 Note that the program was run with the following parameters:
305 \paragraph*{SMPI parameters}
308 \item HOSTFILE: Hosts file description.
309 \item PLATFORM: file description of the platform architecture : clusters (CPU power,
310 \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network (bandwidth bw,
311 lat latency, \dots{}).
315 \paragraph*{Arguments of the program}
318 \item Description of the cluster architecture;
319 \item Maximum number of internal and external iterations;
320 \item Internal and external precisions;
321 \item Matrix size NX, NY and NZ;
322 \item Matrix diagonal value = 6.0;
323 \item Execution Mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
328 \caption{2 clusters X 50 nodes}
329 \label{tab.cluster.2x50}
330 \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!}
331 \includegraphics[width=209pt]{img1.jpg}
336 \caption{3 clusters X 33 nodes}
337 \label{tab.cluster.3x33}
338 \AG{Le fichier manque.}
339 \includegraphics[width=209pt]{img2.jpg}
344 \caption{3 clusters X 67 nodes}
345 \label{tab.cluster.3x67}
346 \AG{Le fichier manque.}
347 % \includegraphics[width=160pt]{img3.jpg}
348 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{img3.jpg}
351 \paragraph*{Interpretations and comments}
353 After analyzing the outputs, generally, for the configuration with two or three
354 clusters including one hundred hosts (Tables~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} and~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33}), some combinations of the
355 used parameters affecting the results have given a speedup less than 1, showing
356 the effectiveness of the asynchronous performance compared to the synchronous
359 In the case of a two clusters configuration, Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} shows that with a
360 deterioration of inter cluster network set with \np[Mbits/s]{5} of bandwidth, a latency
361 in order of a hundredth of a millisecond and a system power of one GFlops, an
362 efficiency of about \np[\%]{40} in asynchronous mode is obtained for a matrix size of 62
363 elements. It is noticed that the result remains stable even if we vary the
364 external precision from \np{E-5} to \np{E-9}. By increasing the problem size up to 100
365 elements, it was necessary to increase the CPU power of \np[\%]{50} to \np[GFlops]{1.5} for a
366 convergence of the algorithm with the same order of asynchronous mode efficiency.
367 Maintaining such a system power but this time, increasing network throughput
368 inter cluster up to \np[Mbits/s]{50}, the result of efficiency of about \np[\%]{40} is
369 obtained with high external precision of \np{E-11} for a matrix size from 110 to 150
372 For the 3 clusters architecture including a total of 100 hosts, Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} shows
373 that it was difficult to have a combination which gives an efficiency of
374 asynchronous below \np[\%]{80}. Indeed, for a matrix size of 62 elements, equality
375 between the performance of the two modes (synchronous and asynchronous) is
376 achieved with an inter cluster of \np[Mbits/s]{10} and a latency of \np{E-1} ms. To
377 challenge an efficiency by \np[\%]{78} with a matrix size of 100 points, it was
378 necessary to degrade the inter cluster network bandwidth from 5 to 2 Mbit/s.
380 A last attempt was made for a configuration of three clusters but more powerful
381 with 200 nodes in total. The convergence with a speedup of \np[\%]{90} was obtained
382 with a bandwidth of \np[Mbits/s]{1} as shown in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
387 The experimental results on executing a parallel iterative algorithm in
388 asynchronous mode on an environment simulating a large scale of virtual
389 computers organized with interconnected clusters have been presented.
390 Our work has demonstrated that using such a simulation tool allow us to
391 reach the following three objectives:
393 \newcounter{numberedCntD}
395 \item To have a flexible configurable execution platform resolving the
396 hard exercise to access to very limited but so solicited physical
398 \item to ensure the algorithm convergence with a raisonnable time and
400 \item and finally and more importantly, to find the correct combination
401 of the cluster and network specifications permitting to save time in
402 executing the algorithm in asynchronous mode.
403 \setcounter{numberedCntD}{\theenumi}
405 Our results have shown that in certain conditions, asynchronous mode is
406 speeder up to 40 \% than executing the algorithm in synchronous mode
407 which is not negligible for solving complex practical problems with more
408 and more increasing size.
410 Several studies have already addressed the performance execution time of
411 this class of algorithm. The work presented in this paper has
412 demonstrated an original solution to optimize the use of a simulation
413 tool to run efficiently an iterative parallel algorithm in asynchronous
414 mode in a grid architecture.
416 \section*{Acknowledgment}
419 The authors would like to thank\dots{}
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