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48 \title{Simulation of Asynchronous Iterative Algorithms Using SimGrid}
52 Charles Emile Ramamonjisoa\IEEEauthorrefmark{1},
53 Lilia Ziane Khodja\IEEEauthorrefmark{2},
54 David Laiymani\IEEEauthorrefmark{1},
55 Arnaud Giersch\IEEEauthorrefmark{1} and
56 Raphaël Couturier\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}
58 \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}%
59 Femto-ST Institute -- DISC Department\\
60 Université de Franche-Comté,
61 IUT de Belfort-Montbéliard\\
62 19 avenue du Maréchal Juin, BP 527, 90016 Belfort cedex, France\\
63 Email: \email{{charles.ramamonjisoa,david.laiymani,arnaud.giersch,raphael.couturier}@univ-fcomte.fr}
65 \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{2}%
66 Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest\\
67 200 avenue de la Vieille Tour, 33405 Talence cedex, France \\
68 Email: \email{lilia.ziane@inria.fr}
76 Synchronous iterative algorithms are often less scalable than asynchronous
77 iterative ones. Performing large scale experiments with different kind of
78 network parameters is not easy because with supercomputers such parameters are
79 fixed. So one solution consists in using simulations first in order to analyze
80 what parameters could influence or not the behaviors of an algorithm. In this
81 paper, we show that it is interesting to use SimGrid to simulate the behaviors
82 of asynchronous iterative algorithms. For that, we compare the behaviour of a
83 synchronous GMRES algorithm with an asynchronous multisplitting one with
84 simulations in which we choose some parameters. Both codes are real MPI
85 codes. Simulations allow us to see when the multisplitting algorithm can be more
86 efficient than the GMRES one to solve a 3D Poisson problem.
89 % no keywords for IEEE conferences
90 % Keywords: Algorithm distributed iterative asynchronous simulation SimGrid
93 \section{Introduction}
95 Parallel computing and high performance computing (HPC) are becoming more and more imperative for solving various
96 problems raised by researchers on various scientific disciplines but also by industrial in the field. Indeed, the
97 increasing complexity of these requested applications combined with a continuous increase of their sizes lead to write
98 distributed and parallel algorithms requiring significant hardware resources (grid computing, clusters, broadband
99 network, etc.) but also a non-negligible CPU execution time. We consider in this paper a class of highly efficient
100 parallel algorithms called \emph{iterative algorithms} executed in a distributed environment. As their name
101 suggests, these algorithms solve a given problem by successive iterations ($X_{n +1} = f(X_{n})$) from an initial value
102 $X_{0}$ to find an approximate value $X^*$ of the solution with a very low residual error. Several well-known methods
103 demonstrate the convergence of these algorithms~\cite{BT89,Bahi07}.
105 Parallelization of such algorithms generally involve the division of the problem into several \emph{blocks} that will
106 be solved in parallel on multiple processing units. The latter will communicate each intermediate results before a new
107 iteration starts and until the approximate solution is reached. These parallel computations can be performed either in
108 \emph{synchronous} mode where a new iteration begins only when all nodes communications are completed,
109 or in \emph{asynchronous} mode where processors can continue independently with few or no synchronization points. For
110 instance in the \textit{Asynchronous Iterations~-- Asynchronous Communications (AIAC)} model~\cite{bcvc06:ij}, local
111 computations do not need to wait for required data. Processors can then perform their iterations with the data present
112 at that time. Even if the number of iterations required before the convergence is generally greater than for the
113 synchronous case, AIAC algorithms can significantly reduce overall execution times by suppressing idle times due to
114 synchronizations especially in a grid computing context (see~\cite{Bahi07} for more details).
116 Parallel (synchronous or asynchronous) applications may have different
117 configuration and deployment requirements. Quantifying their resource
118 allocation policies and application scheduling algorithms in grid computing
119 environments under varying load, CPU power and network speeds is very costly,
120 very labor intensive and very time
121 consuming~\cite{Calheiros:2011:CTM:1951445.1951450}. The case of AIAC
122 algorithms is even more problematic since they are very sensible to the
123 execution environment context. For instance, variations in the network bandwidth
124 (intra and inter-clusters), in the number and the power of nodes, in the number
125 of clusters\dots{} can lead to very different number of iterations and so to
126 very different execution times. Then, it appears that the use of simulation
127 tools to explore various platform scenarios and to run large numbers of
128 experiments quickly can be very promising. In this way, the use of a simulation
129 environment to execute parallel iterative algorithms found some interests in
130 reducing the highly cost of access to computing resources: (1) for the
131 applications development life cycle and in code debugging (2) and in production
132 to get results in a reasonable execution time with a simulated infrastructure
133 not accessible with physical resources. Indeed, the launch of distributed
134 iterative asynchronous algorithms to solve a given problem on a large-scale
135 simulated environment challenges to find optimal configurations giving the best
136 results with a lowest residual error and in the best of execution time.
138 To our knowledge, there is no existing work on the large-scale simulation of a
139 real AIAC application. {\bf The contribution of the present paper can be
140 summarised in two main points}. First we give a first approach of the
141 simulation of AIAC algorithms using a simulation tool (i.e. the SimGrid
142 toolkit~\cite{SimGrid}). Second, we confirm the effectiveness of the
143 asynchronous multisplitting algorithm by comparing its performance with the
144 synchronous GMRES (Generalized Minimal Residual) \cite{ref1}. Both these codes
145 can be used to solve large linear systems. In this paper, we focus on a 3D
146 Poisson problem. We show, that with minor modifications of the initial MPI
147 code, the SimGrid toolkit allows us to perform a test campaign of a real AIAC
148 application on different computing architectures.
149 % The simulated results we
150 %obtained are in line with real results exposed in ??\AG[]{ref?}.
151 SimGrid had allowed us to launch the application from a modest computing
152 infrastructure by simulating different distributed architectures composed by
153 clusters nodes interconnected by variable speed networks. Parameters of the
154 network platforms are the bandwidth and the latency of inter cluster
155 network. Parameters on the cluster's architecture are the number of machines and
156 the computation power of a machine. Simulations show that the asynchronous
157 multisplitting algorithm can solve the 3D Poisson problem approximately twice
158 faster than GMRES with two distant clusters.
162 This article is structured as follows: after this introduction, the next section
163 will give a brief description of iterative asynchronous model. Then, the
164 simulation framework SimGrid is presented with the settings to create various
165 distributed architectures. Then, the multisplitting method is presented, it is
166 based on GMRES to solve each block obtained of the splitting. This code is
167 written with MPI primitives and its adaptation to SimGrid with SMPI (Simulated
168 MPI) is detailed in the next section. At last, the simulation results carried
169 out will be presented before some concluding remarks and future works.
171 \section{Motivations and scientific context}
173 As exposed in the introduction, parallel iterative methods are now widely used
174 in many scientific domains. They can be classified in three main classes
175 depending on how iterations and communications are managed (for more details
176 readers can refer to~\cite{bcvc06:ij}). In the \textit{Synchronous Iterations~--
177 Synchronous Communications (SISC)} model data are exchanged at the end of each
178 iteration. All the processors must begin the same iteration at the same time and
179 important idle times on processors are generated. The \textit{Synchronous
180 Iterations~-- Asynchronous Communications (SIAC)} model can be compared to the
181 previous one except that data required on another processor are sent
182 asynchronously i.e. without stopping current computations. This technique
183 allows to partially overlap communications by computations but unfortunately,
184 the overlapping is only partial and important idle times remain. It is clear
185 that, in a grid computing context, where the number of computational nodes is
186 large, heterogeneous and widely distributed, the idle times generated by
187 synchronizations are very penalizing. One way to overcome this problem is to use
188 the \textit{Asynchronous Iterations~-- Asynchronous Communications (AIAC)}
189 model. Here, local computations do not need to wait for required
190 data. Processors can then perform their iterations with the data present at that
191 time. Figure~\ref{fig:aiac} illustrates this model where the gray blocks
192 represent the computation phases. With this algorithmic model, the number of
193 iterations required before the convergence is generally greater than for the two
194 former classes. But, and as detailed in~\cite{bcvc06:ij}, AIAC algorithms can
195 significantly reduce overall execution times by suppressing idle times due to
196 synchronizations especially in a grid computing context.
197 %\LZK{Répétition par rapport à l'intro}
201 \includegraphics[width=8cm]{AIAC.pdf}
202 \caption{The Asynchronous Iterations~-- Asynchronous Communications model}
206 \RC{Je serais partant de virer AIAC et laisser asynchronous algorithms... à voir}
208 %% It is very challenging to develop efficient applications for large scale,
209 %% heterogeneous and distributed platforms such as computing grids. Researchers and
210 %% engineers have to develop techniques for maximizing application performance of
211 %% these multi-cluster platforms, by redesigning the applications and/or by using
212 %% novel algorithms that can account for the composite and heterogeneous nature of
213 %% the platform. Unfortunately, the deployment of such applications on these very
214 %% large scale systems is very costly, labor intensive and time consuming. In this
215 %% context, it appears that the use of simulation tools to explore various platform
216 %% scenarios at will and to run enormous numbers of experiments quickly can be very
217 %% promising. Several works\dots{}
219 %% \AG{Several works\dots{} what?\\
220 % Le paragraphe suivant se trouve déjà dans l'intro ?}
221 In the context of asynchronous algorithms, the number of iterations to reach the
222 convergence depends on the delay of messages. With synchronous iterations, the
223 number of iterations is exactly the same than in the sequential mode (if the
224 parallelization process does not change the algorithm). So the difficulty with
225 asynchronous algorithms comes from the fact it is necessary to run the algorithm
226 with real data. In fact, from an execution to another the order of messages will
227 change and the number of iterations to reach the convergence will also change.
228 According to all the parameters of the platform (number of nodes, power of
229 nodes, inter and intra clusrters bandwith and latency, ....) and of the
230 algorithm (number of splitting with the multisplitting algorithm), the
231 multisplitting code will obtain the solution more or less quickly. Or course,
232 the GMRES method also depends of the same parameters. As it is difficult to have
233 access to many clusters, grids or supercomputers with many different network
234 parameters, it is interesting to be able to simulate the behaviors of
235 asynchronous iterative algoritms before being able to runs real experiments.
244 SimGrid~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid} is a simulation
245 framework to study the behavior of large-scale distributed systems. As its name
246 says, it emanates from the grid computing community, but is nowadays used to
247 study grids, clouds, HPC or peer-to-peer systems. The early versions of SimGrid
248 date from 1999, but it's still actively developed and distributed as an open
249 source software. Today, it's one of the major generic tools in the field of
250 simulation for large-scale distributed systems.
252 SimGrid provides several programming interfaces: MSG to simulate Concurrent
253 Sequential Processes, SimDAG to simulate DAGs of (parallel) tasks, and SMPI to
254 run real applications written in MPI~\cite{MPI}. Apart from the native C
255 interface, SimGrid provides bindings for the C++, Java, Lua and Ruby programming
256 languages. SMPI is the interface that has been used for the work exposed in
257 this paper. The SMPI interface implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0
258 standard~\cite{bedaride:hal-00919507}, and supports applications written in C or
259 Fortran, with little or no modifications.
261 Within SimGrid, the execution of a distributed application is simulated on a
262 single machine. The application code is really executed, but some operations
263 like the communications are intercepted, and their running time is computed
264 according to the characteristics of the simulated execution platform. The
265 description of this target platform is given as an input for the execution, by
266 the mean of an XML file. It describes the properties of the platform, such as
267 the computing nodes with their computing power, the interconnection links with
268 their bandwidth and latency, and the routing strategy. The simulated running
269 time of the application is computed according to these properties.
271 To compute the durations of the operations in the simulated world, and to take
272 into account resource sharing (e.g. bandwidth sharing between competing
273 communications), SimGrid uses a fluid model. This allows to run relatively fast
274 simulations, while still keeping accurate
275 results~\cite{bedaride:hal-00919507,tomacs13}. Moreover, depending on the
276 simulated application, SimGrid/SMPI allows to skip long lasting computations and
277 to only take their duration into account. When the real computations cannot be
278 skipped, but the results have no importance for the simulation results, there is
279 also the possibility to share dynamically allocated data structures between
280 several simulated processes, and thus to reduce the whole memory consumption.
281 These two techniques can help to run simulations at a very large scale.
283 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
284 \section{Simulation of the multisplitting method}
285 %Décrire le problème (algo) traité ainsi que le processus d'adaptation à SimGrid.
286 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~\cite{o1985multi}. In this case, we apply a row-by-row splitting without overlapping
288 \left(\begin{array}{ccc}
289 A_{11} & \cdots & A_{1L} \\
290 \vdots & \ddots & \vdots\\
291 A_{L1} & \cdots & A_{LL}
294 \left(\begin{array}{c}
300 \left(\begin{array}{c}
306 in such a way that successive rows of matrix $A$ and both vectors $x$ and $b$
307 are assigned to one cluster, where for all $\ell,m\in\{1,\ldots,L\}$, $A_{\ell
308 m}$ is a rectangular block of $A$ of size $n_\ell\times n_m$, $X_\ell$ and
309 $B_\ell$ are sub-vectors of $x$ and $b$, respectively, of size $n_\ell$ each,
310 and $\sum_{\ell} n_\ell=\sum_{m} n_m=n$.
312 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
317 A_{\ell\ell}X_\ell = Y_\ell \text{, such that}\\
318 Y_\ell = B_\ell - \displaystyle\sum_{\substack{m=1\\ m\neq \ell}}^{L}A_{\ell m}X_m
322 is solved independently by a cluster and communications are required to update
323 the right-hand side sub-vector $Y_\ell$, such that the sub-vectors $X_m$
324 represent the data dependencies between the clusters. As each sub-system
325 (\ref{eq:4.1}) is solved in parallel by a cluster of processors, our
326 multisplitting method uses an iterative method as an inner solver which is
327 easier to parallelize and more scalable than a direct method. In this work, we
328 use the parallel algorithm of GMRES method~\cite{ref1} which is one of the most
329 used iterative method by many researchers.
332 %%% IEEE instructions forbid to use an algorithm environment here, use figure
334 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
335 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse sub-matrix), $B_\ell$ (right-hand side sub-vector)
336 \Output $X_\ell$ (solution sub-vector)\medskip
338 \State Load $A_\ell$, $B_\ell$
339 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
340 \For {$k=0,1,2,\ldots$ until the global convergence}
341 \State Restart outer iteration with $x^0=x^k$
342 \State Inner iteration: \Call{InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k+1$}
343 \State\label{algo:01:send} Send shared elements of $X_\ell^{k+1}$ to neighboring clusters
344 \State\label{algo:01:recv} Receive shared elements in $\{X_m^{k+1}\}_{m\neq \ell}$
349 \Function {InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k$}
350 \State Compute local right-hand side $Y_\ell$:
352 Y_\ell = B_\ell - \sum\nolimits^L_{\substack{m=1\\ m\neq \ell}}A_{\ell m}X_m^0
354 \State Solving sub-system $A_{\ell\ell}X_\ell^k=Y_\ell$ with the parallel GMRES method
355 \State \Return $X_\ell^k$
358 \caption{A multisplitting solver with GMRES method}
362 Algorithm on Figure~\ref{algo:01} shows the main key points of the
363 multisplitting method to solve a large sparse linear system. This algorithm is
364 based on an outer-inner iteration method where the parallel synchronous GMRES
365 method is used to solve the inner iteration. It is executed in parallel by each
366 cluster of processors. For all $\ell,m\in\{1,\ldots,L\}$, the matrices and
367 vectors with the subscript $\ell$ represent the local data for cluster $\ell$,
368 while $\{A_{\ell m}\}_{m\neq \ell}$ are off-diagonal matrices of sparse matrix
369 $A$ and $\{X_m\}_{m\neq \ell}$ contain vector elements of solution $x$ shared
370 with neighboring clusters. At every outer iteration $k$, asynchronous
371 communications are performed between processors of the local cluster and those
372 of distant clusters (lines~\ref{algo:01:send} and~\ref{algo:01:recv} in
373 Figure~\ref{algo:01}). The shared vector elements of the solution $x$ are
374 exchanged by message passing using MPI non-blocking communication routines.
378 \includegraphics[width=60mm,keepaspectratio]{clustering}
379 \caption{Example of three clusters of processors interconnected by a virtual unidirectional ring network.}
383 The global convergence of the asynchronous multisplitting solver is detected
384 when the clusters of processors have all converged locally. We implemented the
385 global convergence detection process as follows. On each cluster a master
386 processor is designated (for example the processor with rank 1) and masters of
387 all clusters are interconnected by a virtual unidirectional ring network (see
388 Figure~\ref{fig:4.1}). During the resolution, a Boolean token circulates around
389 the virtual ring from a master processor to another until the global convergence
390 is achieved. So starting from the cluster with rank 1, each master processor $i$
391 sets the token to \textit{True} if the local convergence is achieved or to
392 \textit{False} otherwise, and sends it to master processor $i+1$. Finally, the
393 global convergence is detected when the master of cluster 1 receives from the
394 master of cluster $L$ a token set to \textit{True}. In this case, the master of
395 cluster 1 broadcasts a stop message to masters of other clusters. In this work,
396 the local convergence on each cluster $\ell$ is detected when the following
397 condition is satisfied
399 (k\leq \MI) \text{ or } (\|X_\ell^k - X_\ell^{k+1}\|_{\infty}\leq\epsilon)
401 where $\MI$ is the maximum number of outer iterations and $\epsilon$ is the
402 tolerance threshold of the error computed between two successive local solution
403 $X_\ell^k$ and $X_\ell^{k+1}$.
405 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
406 We did not encounter major blocking problems when adapting the multisplitting algorithm previously described to a simulation environment like SimGrid unless some code
407 debugging. Indeed, apart from the review of the program sequence for asynchronous exchanges between processors within a cluster or between clusters, the algorithm was executed successfully with SMPI and provided identical outputs as those obtained with direct execution under MPI. In synchronous
408 mode, the execution of the program raised no particular issue but in asynchronous mode, the review of the sequence of MPI\_Isend, MPI\_Irecv and MPI\_Waitall instructions
409 and with the addition of the primitive MPI\_Test was needed to avoid a memory fault due to an infinite loop resulting from the non-convergence of the algorithm.
410 \CER{On voulait en fait montrer la simplicité de l'adaptation de l'algo a SimGrid. Les problèmes rencontrés décrits dans ce paragraphe concerne surtout le mode async}\LZK{OK. J'aurais préféré avoir un peu plus de détails sur l'adaptation de la version async}
411 Note here that the use of SMPI functions optimizer for memory footprint and CPU usage is not recommended knowing that one wants to get real results by simulation.
412 As mentioned, upon this adaptation, the algorithm is executed as in the real life in the simulated environment after the following minor changes. First, all declared
413 global variables have been moved to local variables for each subroutine. In fact, global variables generate side effects arising from the concurrent access of
414 shared memory used by threads simulating each computing unit in the SimGrid architecture. Second, the alignment of certain types of variables such as ``long int'' had
416 \AG{À propos de ces problèmes d'alignement, en dire plus si ça a un intérêt, ou l'enlever.}
417 Finally, some compilation errors on MPI\_Waitall and MPI\_Finalize primitives have been fixed with the latest version of SimGrid.
418 In total, the initial MPI program running on the simulation environment SMPI gave after a very simple adaptation the same results as those obtained in a real
419 environment. We have successfully executed the code in synchronous mode using parallel GMRES algorithm compared with our multisplitting algorithm in asynchronous mode after few modifications.
423 \section{Experimental results}
425 When the \textit{real} application runs in the simulation environment and produces the expected results, varying the input
426 parameters and the program arguments allows us to compare outputs from the code execution. We have noticed from this
427 study that the results depend on the following parameters:
429 \item At the network level, we found that the most critical values are the
430 bandwidth and the network latency.
431 \item Hosts power (GFlops) can also influence on the results.
432 \item Finally, when submitting job batches for execution, the arguments values
433 passed to the program like the maximum number of iterations or the external
434 precision are critical. They allow to ensure not only the convergence of the
435 algorithm but also to get the main objective of the experimentation of the
436 simulation in having an execution time in asynchronous less than in
437 synchronous mode. The ratio between the execution time of asynchronous
438 compared to the synchronous mode is defined as the \emph{relative gain}. So,
439 our objective running the algorithm in SimGrid is to obtain a relative gain
441 \AG{$t_\text{async} / t_\text{sync} > 1$, l'objectif est donc que ça dure plus
442 longtemps (que ça aille moins vite) en asynchrone qu'en synchrone ?
443 Ce n'est pas plutôt l'inverse ?}
446 A priori, obtaining a relative gain greater than 1 would be difficult in a local
447 area network configuration where the synchronous mode will take advantage on the
448 rapid exchange of information on such high-speed links. Thus, the methodology
449 adopted was to launch the application on clustered network. In this last
450 configuration, degrading the inter-cluster network performance will penalize the
451 synchronous mode allowing to get a relative gain greater than 1. This action
452 simulates the case of distant clusters linked with long distance network like
455 \AG{Cette partie sur le poisson 3D
456 % on sait donc que ce n'est pas une plie ou une sole (/me fatigué)
457 n'est pas à sa place. Elle devrait être placée plus tôt.}
458 In this paper, we solve the 3D Poisson problem whose the mathematical model is
462 \nabla^2 u = f \text{~in~} \Omega \\
463 u =0 \text{~on~} \Gamma =\partial\Omega
468 where $\nabla^2$ is the Laplace operator, $f$ and $u$ are real-valued functions, and $\Omega=[0,1]^3$. The spatial discretization with a finite difference scheme reduces problem~(\ref{eq:02}) to a system of sparse linear equations. The general iteration scheme of our multisplitting method in a 3D domain using a seven point stencil could be written as
471 u^{k+1}(x,y,z)= & u^k(x,y,z) - \frac{1}{6}\times\\
472 & (u^k(x-1,y,z) + u^k(x+1,y,z) + \\
473 & u^k(x,y-1,z) + u^k(x,y+1,z) + \\
474 & u^k(x,y,z-1) + u^k(x,y,z+1)),
478 where the iteration matrix $A$ of size $N_x\times N_y\times N_z$ of the discretized linear system is sparse, symmetric and positive definite.
480 The parallel solving of the 3D Poisson problem with our multisplitting method requires a data partitioning of the problem between clusters and between processors within a cluster. We have chosen the 3D partitioning instead of the row-by-row partitioning in order to reduce the data exchanges at sub-domain boundaries. Figure~\ref{fig:4.2} shows an example of the data partitioning of the 3D Poisson problem between two clusters of processors, where each sub-problem is assigned to a processor. In this context, a processor has at most six neighbors within a cluster or in distant clusters with which it shares data at sub-domain boundaries.
484 \includegraphics[width=80mm,keepaspectratio]{partition}
485 \caption{Example of the 3D data partitioning between two clusters of processors.}
490 As a first step, the algorithm was run on a network consisting of two clusters
491 containing 50 hosts each, totaling 100 hosts. Various combinations of the above
492 factors have provided the results shown in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} with a
493 matrix size ranging from $N_x = N_y = N_z = \text{62}$ to 171 elements or from
494 $\text{62}^\text{3} = \text{\np{238328}}$ to $\text{171}^\text{3} =
495 \text{\np{5000211}}$ entries.
496 \AG{Expliquer comment lire les tableaux.}
498 % use the same column width for the following three tables
499 \newlength{\mytablew}\settowidth{\mytablew}{\footnotesize\np{E-11}}
500 \newenvironment{mytable}[1]{% #1: number of columns for data
501 \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.3}%
502 \begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}r%
503 |*{#1}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{\mytablew}|}}}{%
508 \caption{2 clusters, each with 50 nodes}
509 \label{tab.cluster.2x50}
514 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 50 \\
517 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 \\
520 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 \\
523 & 62 & 62 & 62 & 100 & 100 & 110 \\
526 & \np{E-5} & \np{E-8} & \np{E-9} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} \\
530 & 2.52 & 2.55 & 2.52 & 2.57 & 2.54 & 2.53 \\
539 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 10 & 10 \\
542 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.03 & 0.01 \\
545 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1 & 1.5 \\
548 & 120 & 130 & 140 & 150 & 171 & 171 \\
551 & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} \\
555 & 2.51 & 2.58 & 2.55 & 2.54 & 1.59 & 1.29 \\
560 Then we have changed the network configuration using three clusters containing
561 respectively 33, 33 and 34 hosts, or again by on hundred hosts for all the
562 clusters. In the same way as above, a judicious choice of key parameters has
563 permitted to get the results in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} which shows the
564 relative gains greater than 1 with a matrix size from 62 to 100 elements.
568 \caption{3 clusters, each with 33 nodes}
569 \label{tab.cluster.3x33}
574 & 10 & 5 & 4 & 3 & 2 & 6 \\
577 & 0.01 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 \\
580 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1 \\
583 & 62 & 100 & 100 & 100 & 100 & 171 \\
586 & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} \\
590 & 1.003 & 1.01 & 1.08 & 1.19 & 1.28 & 1.01 \\
595 In a final step, results of an execution attempt to scale up the three clustered
596 configuration but increasing by two hundreds hosts has been recorded in
597 Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
601 \caption{3 clusters, each with 66 nodes}
602 \label{tab.cluster.3x67}
614 Prec/Eprec & \np{E-5} \\
617 Relative gain & 1.11 \\
622 Note that the program was run with the following parameters:
624 \paragraph*{SMPI parameters}
626 ~\\{}\AG{Donner un peu plus de précisions (plateforme en particulier).}
628 \item HOSTFILE: Hosts file description.
629 \item PLATFORM: file description of the platform architecture : clusters (CPU
630 power, \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network
631 (bandwidth, latency, \dots{}).
635 \paragraph*{Arguments of the program}
638 \item Description of the cluster architecture;
639 \item Maximum number of internal and external iterations;
640 \item Internal and external precisions;
641 \item Matrix size $N_x$, $N_y$ and $N_z$;
642 \item Matrix diagonal value: \np{6.0};
643 \item Matrix off-diagonal value: \np{-1.0};
644 \item Execution Mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
647 \paragraph*{Interpretations and comments}
649 After analyzing the outputs, generally, for the configuration with two or three
650 clusters including one hundred hosts (Tables~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50}
651 and~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33}), some combinations of the used parameters affecting
652 the results have given a relative gain more than 2.5, showing the effectiveness of the
653 asynchronous performance compared to the synchronous mode.
655 In the case of a two clusters configuration, Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} shows
656 that with a deterioration of inter cluster network set with \np[Mbit/s]{5} of
657 bandwidth, a latency in order of a hundredth of a millisecond and a system power
658 of one GFlops, an efficiency of about \np[\%]{40} in asynchronous mode is
659 obtained for a matrix size of 62 elements. It is noticed that the result remains
660 stable even if we vary the external precision from \np{E-5} to \np{E-9}. By
661 increasing the matrix size up to 100 elements, it was necessary to increase the
662 CPU power of \np[\%]{50} to \np[GFlops]{1.5} for a convergence of the algorithm
663 with the same order of asynchronous mode efficiency. Maintaining such a system
664 power but this time, increasing network throughput inter cluster up to
665 \np[Mbit/s]{50}, the result of efficiency with a relative gain of 1.5\AG[]{2.5 ?} is obtained with
666 high external precision of \np{E-11} for a matrix size from 110 to 150 side
669 For the 3 clusters architecture including a total of 100 hosts,
670 Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} shows that it was difficult to have a combination
671 which gives a relative gain of asynchronous mode more than 1.2. Indeed, for a
672 matrix size of 62 elements, equality between the performance of the two modes
673 (synchronous and asynchronous) is achieved with an inter cluster of
674 \np[Mbit/s]{10} and a latency of \np[ms]{E-1}. To challenge an efficiency greater than 1.2 with a matrix size of 100 points, it was necessary to degrade the
675 inter cluster network bandwidth from 5 to \np[Mbit/s]{2}.
676 \AG{Conclusion, on prend une plateforme pourrie pour avoir un bon ratio sync/async ???
677 Quelle est la perte de perfs en faisant ça ?}
679 A last attempt was made for a configuration of three clusters but more powerful
680 with 200 nodes in total. The convergence with a relative gain around 1.1 was
681 obtained with a bandwidth of \np[Mbit/s]{1} as shown in
682 Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
684 \RC{Est ce qu'on sait expliquer pourquoi il y a une telle différence entre les résultats avec 2 et 3 clusters... Avec 3 clusters, ils sont pas très bons... Je me demande s'il ne faut pas les enlever...}
685 \RC{En fait je pense avoir la réponse à ma remarque... On voit avec les 2 clusters que le gain est d'autant plus grand qu'on choisit une bonne précision. Donc, plusieurs solutions, lancer rapidement un long test pour confirmer ca, ou enlever des tests... ou on ne change rien :-)}
686 \LZK{Ma question est: le bandwidth et latency sont ceux inter-clusters ou pour les deux inter et intra cluster??}
689 The experimental results on executing a parallel iterative algorithm in
690 asynchronous mode on an environment simulating a large scale of virtual
691 computers organized with interconnected clusters have been presented.
692 Our work has demonstrated that using such a simulation tool allow us to
693 reach the following three objectives:
696 \item To have a flexible configurable execution platform resolving the
697 hard exercise to access to very limited but so solicited physical
699 \item to ensure the algorithm convergence with a reasonable time and
701 \item and finally and more importantly, to find the correct combination
702 of the cluster and network specifications permitting to save time in
703 executing the algorithm in asynchronous mode.
705 Our results have shown that in certain conditions, asynchronous mode is
706 speeder up to \np[\%]{40} than executing the algorithm in synchronous mode
707 which is not negligible for solving complex practical problems with more
708 and more increasing size.
710 Several studies have already addressed the performance execution time of
711 this class of algorithm. The work presented in this paper has
712 demonstrated an original solution to optimize the use of a simulation
713 tool to run efficiently an iterative parallel algorithm in asynchronous
714 mode in a grid architecture.
716 \LZK{Perspectives???}
718 \section*{Acknowledgment}
720 This work is partially funded by the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
721 \todo[inline]{The authors would like to thank\dots{}}
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726 % the document is modified later
727 \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
728 \bibliography{IEEEabrv,hpccBib}
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