+SimGrid~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid} is a simulation
+framework to study the behavior of large-scale distributed systems. As its name
+says, it emanates from the grid computing community, but is nowadays used to
+study grids, clouds, HPC or peer-to-peer systems. The early versions of SimGrid
+date from 1999, but it's still actively developed and distributed as an open
+source software. Today, it's one of the major generic tools in the field of
+simulation for large-scale distributed systems.
+
+SimGrid provides several programming interfaces: MSG to simulate Concurrent
+Sequential Processes, SimDAG to simulate DAGs of (parallel) tasks, and SMPI to
+run real applications written in MPI~\cite{MPI}. Apart from the native C
+interface, SimGrid provides bindings for the C++, Java, Lua and Ruby programming
+languages. SMPI is the interface that has been used for the work exposed in
+this paper. The SMPI interface implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0
+standard~\cite{bedaride:hal-00919507}, and supports applications written in C or
+Fortran, with little or no modifications.
+
+Within SimGrid, the execution of a distributed application is simulated on a
+single machine. The application code is really executed, but some operations
+like the communications are intercepted, and their running time is computed
+according to the characteristics of the simulated execution platform. The
+description of this target platform is given as an input for the execution, by
+the mean of an XML file. It describes the properties of the platform, such as
+the computing nodes with their computing power, the interconnection links with
+their bandwidth and latency, and the routing strategy. The simulated running
+time of the application is computed according to these properties.
+
+To compute the durations of the operations in the simulated world, and to take
+into account resource sharing (e.g. bandwidth sharing between competing
+communications), SimGrid uses a fluid model. This allows to run relatively fast
+simulations, while still keeping accurate
+results~\cite{bedaride:hal-00919507,tomacs13}. Moreover, depending on the
+simulated application, SimGrid/SMPI allows to skip long lasting computations and
+to only take their duration into account. When the real computations cannot be
+skipped, but the results have no importance for the simulation results, there is
+also the possibility to share dynamically allocated data structures between
+several simulated processes, and thus to reduce the whole memory consumption.
+These two techniques can help to run simulations at a very large scale.
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+\section{Simulation of the multisplitting method}
+%Décrire le problème (algo) traité ainsi que le processus d'adaptation à SimGrid.
+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
+\begin{equation*}
+ \left(\begin{array}{ccc}
+ A_{11} & \cdots & A_{1L} \\
+ \vdots & \ddots & \vdots\\
+ A_{L1} & \cdots & A_{LL}
+ \end{array} \right)
+ \times
+ \left(\begin{array}{c}
+ X_1 \\
+ \vdots\\
+ X_L
+ \end{array} \right)
+ =
+ \left(\begin{array}{c}
+ B_1 \\
+ \vdots\\
+ B_L
+ \end{array} \right)
+\end{equation*}
+in such a way that successive rows of matrix $A$ and both vectors $x$ and $b$
+are assigned to one cluster, where for all $\ell,m\in\{1,\ldots,L\}$, $A_{\ell
+ m}$ is a rectangular block of $A$ of size $n_\ell\times n_m$, $X_\ell$ and
+$B_\ell$ are sub-vectors of $x$ and $b$, respectively, of size $n_\ell$ each,
+and $\sum_{\ell} n_\ell=\sum_{m} n_m=n$.
+
+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
+\begin{equation}
+ \label{eq:4.1}
+ \left\{
+ \begin{array}{l}
+ A_{\ell\ell}X_\ell = Y_\ell \text{, such that}\\
+ Y_\ell = B_\ell - \displaystyle\sum_{\substack{m=1\\ m\neq \ell}}^{L}A_{\ell m}X_m
+ \end{array}
+ \right.
+\end{equation}
+is solved independently by a cluster and communications are required to update
+the right-hand side sub-vector $Y_\ell$, 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.
+
+\begin{figure}[!t]
+ %%% IEEE instructions forbid to use an algorithm environment here, use figure
+ %%% instead
+\begin{algorithmic}[1]
+\Input $A_\ell$ (sparse sub-matrix), $B_\ell$ (right-hand side sub-vector)
+\Output $X_\ell$ (solution sub-vector)\medskip
+
+\State Load $A_\ell$, $B_\ell$
+\State Set the initial guess $x^0$
+\For {$k=0,1,2,\ldots$ until the global convergence}
+\State Restart outer iteration with $x^0=x^k$
+\State Inner iteration: \Call{InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k+1$}
+\State\label{algo:01:send} Send shared elements of $X_\ell^{k+1}$ to neighboring clusters
+\State\label{algo:01:recv} Receive shared elements in $\{X_m^{k+1}\}_{m\neq \ell}$
+\EndFor
+
+\Statex
+
+\Function {InnerSolver}{$x^0$, $k$}
+\State Compute local right-hand side $Y_\ell$:
+ \begin{equation*}
+ Y_\ell = B_\ell - \sum\nolimits^L_{\substack{m=1\\ m\neq \ell}}A_{\ell m}X_m^0
+ \end{equation*}
+\State Solving sub-system $A_{\ell\ell}X_\ell^k=Y_\ell$ with the parallel GMRES method
+\State \Return $X_\ell^k$
+\EndFunction
+\end{algorithmic}
+\caption{A multisplitting solver with GMRES method}
+\label{algo:01}
+\end{figure}
+
+Algorithm on Figure~\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 $\ell,m\in\{1,\ldots,L\}$, the matrices and
+vectors with the subscript $\ell$ represent the local data for cluster $\ell$,
+while $\{A_{\ell m}\}_{m\neq \ell}$ are off-diagonal matrices of sparse matrix
+$A$ and $\{X_m\}_{m\neq \ell}$ 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~\ref{algo:01:send} and~\ref{algo:01:recv} in
+Figure~\ref{algo:01}). The shared vector elements of the solution $x$ are
+exchanged by message passing using MPI non-blocking communication routines.
+
+\begin{figure}[!t]
+\centering
+ \includegraphics[width=60mm,keepaspectratio]{clustering}
+\caption{Example of three clusters of processors interconnected by a virtual unidirectional ring network.}
+\label{fig:4.1}
+\end{figure}
+
+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 \textit{True} if the local convergence is achieved or to
+\textit{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 \textit{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 $\ell$ is detected when the following
+condition is satisfied
+\begin{equation*}
+ (k\leq \MI) \text{ or } (\|X_\ell^k - X_\ell^{k+1}\|_{\infty}\leq\epsilon)
+\end{equation*}
+where $\MI$ is the maximum number of outer iterations and $\epsilon$ is the
+tolerance threshold of the error computed between two successive local solution
+$X_\ell^k$ and $X_\ell^{k+1}$.
+
+
+
+In this paper, we solve the 3D Poisson problem whose the mathematical model is
+\begin{equation}
+\left\{
+\begin{array}{l}
+\nabla^2 u = f \text{~in~} \Omega \\
+u =0 \text{~on~} \Gamma =\partial\Omega
+\end{array}
+\right.
+\label{eq:02}
+\end{equation}
+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
+\begin{equation}
+\begin{array}{ll}
+u^{k+1}(x,y,z)= & u^k(x,y,z) - \frac{1}{6}\times\\
+ & (u^k(x-1,y,z) + u^k(x+1,y,z) + \\
+ & u^k(x,y-1,z) + u^k(x,y+1,z) + \\
+ & u^k(x,y,z-1) + u^k(x,y,z+1)),
+\end{array}
+\label{eq:03}
+\end{equation}
+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.
+
+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.
+
+\begin{figure}[!t]
+\centering
+ \includegraphics[width=80mm,keepaspectratio]{partition}
+\caption{Example of the 3D data partitioning between two clusters of processors.}
+\label{fig:4.2}
+\end{figure}
+
+
+
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+We did not encounter major blocking problems when adapting the multisplitting algorithm previously described to a simulation environment like SimGrid unless some code
+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
+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
+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.
+\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}
+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.
+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
+global variables have been moved to local variables for each subroutine. In fact, global variables generate side effects arising from the concurrent access of
+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
+also to be reviewed.
+\AG{À propos de ces problèmes d'alignement, en dire plus si ça a un intérêt, ou l'enlever.}
+ Finally, some compilation errors on MPI\_Waitall and MPI\_Finalize primitives have been fixed with the latest version of SimGrid.
+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
+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.
+
+
+
+\section{Simulation results}
+
+When the \textit{real} application runs in the simulation environment and produces the expected results, varying the input
+parameters and the program arguments allows us to compare outputs from the code execution. We have noticed from this
+study that the results depend on the following parameters:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item At the network level, we found that the most critical values are the
+ bandwidth and the network latency.
+\item Hosts power (GFlops) can also influence on the results.
+\item Finally, when submitting job batches for execution, the arguments values
+ passed to the program like the maximum number of iterations or the external
+ precision are critical. They allow to ensure not only the convergence of the
+ algorithm but also to get the main objective of the experimentation of the
+ simulation in having an execution time in asynchronous less than in
+ synchronous mode. The ratio between the execution time of asynchronous
+ compared to the synchronous mode is defined as the \emph{relative gain}. So,
+ our objective running the algorithm in SimGrid is to obtain a relative gain
+ greater than 1.
+ \AG{$t_\text{async} / t_\text{sync} > 1$, l'objectif est donc que ça dure plus
+ longtemps (que ça aille moins vite) en asynchrone qu'en synchrone ?
+ Ce n'est pas plutôt l'inverse ?}
+\end{itemize}
+
+A priori, obtaining a relative gain greater than 1 would be difficult in a local
+area network configuration where the synchronous mode will take advantage on the
+rapid exchange of information on such high-speed links. Thus, the methodology
+adopted was to launch the application on clustered network. In this last
+configuration, degrading the inter-cluster network performance will penalize the
+synchronous mode allowing to get a relative gain greater than 1. This action
+simulates the case of distant clusters linked with long distance network like
+Internet.
+
+
+As a first step, the algorithm was run on a network consisting of two clusters
+containing 50 hosts each, totaling 100 hosts. Various combinations of the above
+factors have provided the results shown in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} with a
+matrix size ranging from $N_x = N_y = N_z = \text{62}$ to 171 elements or from
+$\text{62}^\text{3} = \text{\np{238328}}$ to $\text{171}^\text{3} =
+\text{\np{5000211}}$ entries.
+\AG{Expliquer comment lire les tableaux.}
+
+% use the same column width for the following three tables
+\newlength{\mytablew}\settowidth{\mytablew}{\footnotesize\np{E-11}}
+\newenvironment{mytable}[1]{% #1: number of columns for data
+ \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.3}%
+ \begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}r%
+ |*{#1}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{\mytablew}|}}}{%
+ \end{tabular}}
+
+\begin{table}[!t]
+ \centering
+ \caption{2 clusters, each with 50 nodes}
+ \label{tab.cluster.2x50}
+
+ \begin{mytable}{6}
+ \hline
+ bandwidth
+ & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 50 \\
+ \hline
+ latency
+ & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 \\
+ \hline
+ power
+ & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 \\
+ \hline
+ size
+ & 62 & 62 & 62 & 100 & 100 & 110 \\
+ \hline
+ Prec/Eprec
+ & \np{E-5} & \np{E-8} & \np{E-9} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} \\
+ \hline
+ \hline
+ Relative gain
+ & 2.52 & 2.55 & 2.52 & 2.57 & 2.54 & 2.53 \\
+ \hline
+ \end{mytable}
+
+ \bigskip
+
+ \begin{mytable}{6}
+ \hline
+ bandwidth
+ & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 10 & 10 \\
+ \hline
+ latency
+ & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.03 & 0.01 \\
+ \hline
+ power
+ & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1 & 1.5 \\
+ \hline
+ size
+ & 120 & 130 & 140 & 150 & 171 & 171 \\
+ \hline
+ Prec/Eprec
+ & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} \\
+ \hline
+ \hline
+ Relative gain
+ & 2.51 & 2.58 & 2.55 & 2.54 & 1.59 & 1.29 \\
+ \hline
+ \end{mytable}
+\end{table}
+
+Then we have changed the network configuration using three clusters containing
+respectively 33, 33 and 34 hosts, or again by on hundred hosts for all the
+clusters. In the same way as above, a judicious choice of key parameters has
+permitted to get the results in Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} which shows the
+relative gains greater than 1 with a matrix size from 62 to 100 elements.
+
+\begin{table}[!t]
+ \centering
+ \caption{3 clusters, each with 33 nodes}
+ \label{tab.cluster.3x33}
+
+ \begin{mytable}{6}
+ \hline
+ bandwidth
+ & 10 & 5 & 4 & 3 & 2 & 6 \\
+ \hline
+ latency
+ & 0.01 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 & 0.02 \\
+ \hline
+ power
+ & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1 \\
+ \hline
+ size
+ & 62 & 100 & 100 & 100 & 100 & 171 \\
+ \hline
+ Prec/Eprec
+ & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} & \np{E-5} \\
+ \hline
+ \hline
+ Relative gain
+ & 1.003 & 1.01 & 1.08 & 1.19 & 1.28 & 1.01 \\
+ \hline
+ \end{mytable}
+\end{table}
+
+In a final step, results of an execution attempt to scale up the three clustered
+configuration but increasing by two hundreds hosts has been recorded in
+Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
+
+\begin{table}[!t]
+ \centering
+ \caption{3 clusters, each with 66 nodes}
+ \label{tab.cluster.3x67}
+
+ \begin{mytable}{1}
+ \hline
+ bandwidth & 1 \\
+ \hline
+ latency & 0.02 \\
+ \hline
+ power & 1 \\
+ \hline
+ size & 62 \\
+ \hline
+ Prec/Eprec & \np{E-5} \\
+ \hline
+ \hline
+ Relative gain & 1.11 \\
+ \hline
+ \end{mytable}
+\end{table}
+
+Note that the program was run with the following parameters:
+
+\paragraph*{SMPI parameters}
+
+~\\{}\AG{Donner un peu plus de précisions (plateforme en particulier).}
+\begin{itemize}
+\item HOSTFILE: Hosts file description.
+\item PLATFORM: file description of the platform architecture : clusters (CPU
+ power, \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network
+ (bandwidth, latency, \dots{}).
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+\paragraph*{Arguments of the program}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+ \item Description of the cluster architecture;
+ \item Maximum number of internal and external iterations;
+ \item Internal and external precisions;
+ \item Matrix size $N_x$, $N_y$ and $N_z$;
+ \item Matrix diagonal value: \np{6.0};
+ \item Matrix off-diagonal value: \np{-1.0};
+ \item Execution Mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
+\end{itemize}
+
+\paragraph*{Interpretations and comments}
+
+After analyzing the outputs, generally, for the configuration with two or three
+clusters including one hundred hosts (Tables~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50}
+and~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33}), some combinations of the used parameters affecting
+the results have given a relative gain more than 2.5, showing the effectiveness of the
+asynchronous performance compared to the synchronous mode.
+
+In the case of a two clusters configuration, Table~\ref{tab.cluster.2x50} shows
+that with a deterioration of inter cluster network set with \np[Mbit/s]{5} of
+bandwidth, a latency in order of a hundredth of a millisecond and a system power
+of one GFlops, an efficiency of about \np[\%]{40} in asynchronous mode is
+obtained for a matrix size of 62 elements. It is noticed that the result remains
+stable even if we vary the external precision from \np{E-5} to \np{E-9}. By
+increasing the matrix size up to 100 elements, it was necessary to increase the
+CPU power of \np[\%]{50} to \np[GFlops]{1.5} for a convergence of the algorithm
+with the same order of asynchronous mode efficiency. Maintaining such a system
+power but this time, increasing network throughput inter cluster up to
+\np[Mbit/s]{50}, the result of efficiency with a relative gain of 1.5\AG[]{2.5 ?} is obtained with
+high external precision of \np{E-11} for a matrix size from 110 to 150 side
+elements.
+
+For the 3 clusters architecture including a total of 100 hosts,
+Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x33} shows that it was difficult to have a combination
+which gives a relative gain of asynchronous mode more than 1.2. Indeed, for a
+matrix size of 62 elements, equality between the performance of the two modes
+(synchronous and asynchronous) is achieved with an inter cluster of
+\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
+inter cluster network bandwidth from 5 to \np[Mbit/s]{2}.
+\AG{Conclusion, on prend une plateforme pourrie pour avoir un bon ratio sync/async ???
+ Quelle est la perte de perfs en faisant ça ?}
+
+A last attempt was made for a configuration of three clusters but more powerful
+with 200 nodes in total. The convergence with a relative gain around 1.1 was
+obtained with a bandwidth of \np[Mbit/s]{1} as shown in
+Table~\ref{tab.cluster.3x67}.
+
+\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...}
+\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 :-)}
+\LZK{Ma question est: le bandwidth et latency sont ceux inter-clusters ou pour les deux inter et intra cluster??}
