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74 \title{Grid-enabled simulation of large-scale linear iterative solvers}
75 %\itshape{\journalnamelc}\footnotemark[2]}
77 \author{Charles Emile Ramamonjisoa\affil{1},
78 David Laiymani\affil{1},
79 Arnaud Giersch\affil{1},
80 Lilia Ziane Khodja\affil{2} and
81 Raphaël Couturier\affil{1}
86 Femto-ST Institute, DISC Department,
87 University of Franche-Comté,
89 Email:~\email{{charles.ramamonjisoa,david.laiymani,arnaud.giersch,raphael.couturier}@univ-fcomte.fr}\break
91 Department of Aerospace \& Mechanical Engineering,
92 Non Linear Computational Mechanics,
93 University of Liege, Liege, Belgium.
94 Email:~\email{l.zianekhodja@ulg.ac.be}
97 \begin{abstract} %% The behavior of multi-core applications is always a challenge
98 %% to predict, especially with a new architecture for which no experiment has been
99 %% performed. With some applications, it is difficult, if not impossible, to build
100 %% accurate performance models. That is why another solution is to use a simulation
101 %% tool which allows us to change many parameters of the architecture (network
102 %% bandwidth, latency, number of processors) and to simulate the execution of such
103 %% applications. The main contribution of this paper is to show that the use of a
104 %% simulation tool (here we have decided to use the SimGrid toolkit) can really
105 %% help developers to better tune their applications for a given multi-core
108 %% In this paper we focus our attention on the simulation of iterative algorithms to solve sparse linear systems on large clusters. We study the behavior of the widely used GMRES algorithm and two different variants of the Multisplitting algorithms: one using synchronous iterations and another one with asynchronous iterations.
109 %% For each algorithm we have simulated
110 %% different architecture parameters to evaluate their influence on the overall
112 %% The simulations confirm the real results previously obtained on different real multi-core architectures and also confirm the efficiency of the asynchronous Multisplitting algorithm on distant clusters compared to the synchronous GMRES algorithm.
114 The behavior of multi-core applications is always a challenge to predict, especially with a new architecture for which no experiment has been performed. With some applications, it is difficult, if not impossible, to build accurate performance models. That is why another solution is to use a simulation tool which allows us to change many parameters of the architecture (network bandwidth, latency, number of processors) and to simulate the execution of such applications.
116 In this paper we focus on the simulation of iterative algorithms to solve sparse linear systems. We study the behavior of the GMRES algorithm and two different variants of the multisplitting algorithms: using synchronous or asynchronous iterations. For each algorithm we have simulated different architecture parameters to evaluate their influence on the overall execution time. The simulations confirm the real results previously obtained on different real multi-core architectures and also confirm the efficiency of the asynchronous multisplitting algorithm on distant clusters compared to the GMRES algorithm.
120 %\keywords{Algorithm; distributed; iterative; asynchronous; simulation; simgrid;
122 \keywords{ Performance evaluation, Simulation, SimGrid, Synchronous and asynchronous iterations, Multisplitting algorithms}
126 \section{Introduction} The use of multi-core architectures to solve large
127 scientific problems seems to become imperative in many situations.
128 Whatever the scale of these architectures (distributed clusters, computational
129 grids, embedded multi-core,~\ldots) they are generally well adapted to execute
130 complex parallel applications operating on a large amount of data.
131 Unfortunately, users (industrials or scientists), who need such computational
132 resources, may not have an easy access to such efficient architectures. The cost
133 of using the platform and/or the cost of testing and deploying an application
134 are often very important. So, in this context it is difficult to optimize a
135 given application for a given architecture. In this way and in order to reduce
136 the access cost to these computing resources it seems very interesting to use a
137 simulation environment. The advantages are numerous: development life cycle,
138 code debugging, ability to obtain results quickly\dots{} In counterpart, the simulation results need to be consistent with the real ones.
140 In this paper we focus on a class of highly efficient parallel algorithms called
141 \emph{iterative algorithms}. The parallel scheme of iterative methods is quite
142 simple. It generally involves the division of the problem into several
143 \emph{blocks} that will be solved in parallel on multiple processing
144 units. Each processing unit has to compute an iteration to send/receive some
145 data dependencies to/from its neighbors and to iterate this process until the
146 convergence of the method. Several well-known studies demonstrate the
147 convergence of these algorithms~\cite{BT89,bahi07}. In this processing mode a
148 task cannot begin a new iteration while it has not received data dependencies
149 from its neighbors. We say that the iteration computation follows a
150 \textit{synchronous} scheme. In the asynchronous scheme a task can compute a new
151 iteration without having to wait for the data dependencies coming from its
152 neighbors. Both communications and computations are \textit{asynchronous}
153 inducing that there is no more idle time, due to synchronizations, between two
154 iterations~\cite{bcvc06:ij}. This model presents some advantages and drawbacks
155 that we detail in Section~\ref{sec:asynchro} but even if the number of
156 iterations required to converge is generally greater than for the synchronous
157 case, it appears that the asynchronous iterative scheme can significantly
158 reduce overall execution times by suppressing idle times due to
159 synchronizations~(see~\cite{bahi07} for more details).
161 Nevertheless, in both cases (synchronous or asynchronous) it is very time
162 consuming to find optimal configuration and deployment requirements for a given
163 application on a given multi-core architecture. Finding good resource
164 allocations policies under varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very
165 challenging and labor intensive~\cite{Calheiros:2011:CTM:1951445.1951450}. This
166 problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous scheme where a small
167 parameter variation of the execution platform and of the application data can
168 lead to very different numbers of iterations to reach the convergence and so to
169 very different execution times. In this challenging context we think that the
170 use of a simulation tool can greatly leverage the possibility of testing various
173 The {\bf main contribution of this paper} is to show that the use of a
174 simulation tool (i.e. the SimGrid toolkit~\cite{SimGrid}) in the context of real
175 parallel applications (i.e. large linear system solvers) can help developers to
176 better tune their applications for a given multi-core architecture. To show the
177 validity of this approach we first compare the simulated execution of the Krylov
178 multisplitting algorithm with the GMRES (Generalized Minimal RESidual)
179 solver~\cite{saad86} in synchronous mode. The simulation results allow us to
180 determine which method to choose for a given multi-core architecture.
181 Moreover the obtained results on different simulated multi-core architectures
182 confirm the real results previously obtained on non simulated architectures.
183 More precisely the simulated results are in accordance (i.e. with the same order
184 of magnitude) with the works presented in~\cite{couturier15}, which show that
185 the synchronous Krylov multisplitting method is more efficient than GMRES for large
186 scale clusters. Simulated results also confirm the efficiency of the
187 asynchronous multisplitting algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES
188 especially in case of geographically distant clusters.
190 In this way and with a simple computing architecture (a laptop) SimGrid allows us
191 to run a test campaign of a real parallel iterative applications on
192 different simulated multi-core architectures. To our knowledge, there is no
193 related work on the large-scale multi-core simulation of a real synchronous and
194 asynchronous iterative application.
196 This paper is organized as follows. Section~\ref{sec:asynchro} presents the
197 iteration model we use and more particularly the asynchronous scheme. In
198 Section~\ref{sec:simgrid} the SimGrid simulation toolkit is presented.
199 Section~\ref{sec:04} details the different solvers that we use. Finally our
200 experimental results are presented in Section~\ref{sec:expe} followed by some
201 concluding remarks and perspectives.
204 \section{The asynchronous iteration model and the motivations of our work}
207 Asynchronous iterative methods have been studied for many years theoretically and
208 practically. Many methods have been considered and convergence results have been
209 proved. These methods can be used to solve, in parallel, fixed point problems
210 (i.e. problems for which the solution is $x^\star =f(x^\star)$. In practice,
211 asynchronous iteration methods can be used to solve, for example, linear and
212 non-linear systems of equations or optimization problems, interested readers are
213 invited to read~\cite{BT89,bahi07}.
215 Before using an asynchronous iterative method, the convergence must be
216 studied. Otherwise, the application is not ensure to reach the convergence. An
217 algorithm that supports both the synchronous or the asynchronous iteration model
218 requires very few modifications to be able to be executed in both variants. In
219 practice, only the communications and convergence detection are different. In
220 the synchronous mode, iterations are synchronized whereas in the asynchronous
221 one, they are not. It should be noticed that non-blocking communications can be
222 used in both modes. Concerning the convergence detection, synchronous variants
223 can use a global convergence procedure which acts as a global synchronization
224 point. In the asynchronous model, the convergence detection is more tricky as
225 it must not synchronize all the processors. Interested readers can
226 consult~\cite{myBCCV05c,bahi07,ccl09:ij}.
228 The number of iterations required to reach the convergence is generally greater
229 for the asynchronous scheme (this number depends on the delay of the
230 messages). Note that, it is not the case in the synchronous mode where the
231 number of iterations is the same than in the sequential mode. In this way, the
232 set of the parameters of the platform (number of nodes, power of nodes,
233 inter and intra clusters bandwidth and latency,~\ldots) and of the
234 application can drastically change the number of iterations required to get the
235 convergence. It follows that asynchronous iterative algorithms are difficult to
236 optimize since the financial and deployment costs on large scale multi-core
237 architectures are often very important. So, prior to deployment and tests it
238 seems very promising to be able to simulate the behavior of asynchronous
239 iterative algorithms. The problematic is then to show that the results produced
240 by simulation are in accordance with reality i.e. of the same order of
241 magnitude. To our knowledge, there is no study on this problematic.
245 SimGrid~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid,casanova+giersch+legrand+al.2014.versatile} is a discrete event simulation framework to study the behavior of large-scale distributed computing platforms as Grids, Peer-to-Peer systems, Clouds and High Performance Computation systems. It is widely used to simulate and evaluate heuristics, prototype applications or even assess legacy MPI applications. It is still actively developed by the scientific community and distributed as an open source software.
247 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
248 % SimGrid~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid,casanova+giersch+legrand+al.2014.versatile}
249 % is a simulation framework to study the behavior of large-scale distributed
250 % systems. As its name suggests, it emanates from the grid computing community,
251 % but is nowadays used to study grids, clouds, HPC or peer-to-peer systems. The
252 % early versions of SimGrid date back from 1999, but it is still actively
253 % developed and distributed as an open source software. Today, it is one of the
254 % major generic tools in the field of simulation for large-scale distributed
257 SimGrid provides several programming interfaces: MSG to simulate Concurrent
258 Sequential Processes, SimDAG to simulate DAGs of (parallel) tasks, and SMPI to
259 run real applications written in MPI~\cite{MPI}. Apart from the native C
260 interface, SimGrid provides bindings for the C++, Java, Lua and Ruby programming
261 languages. SMPI is the interface that has been used for the work described in
262 this paper. The SMPI interface implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0
263 standard~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}, and supports
264 applications written in C or Fortran, with little or no modifications (cf Section IV - paragraph B).
266 Within SimGrid, the execution of a distributed application is simulated by a
267 single process. The application code is really executed, but some operations,
268 like communications, are intercepted, and their running time is computed
269 according to the characteristics of the simulated execution platform. The
270 description of this target platform is given as an input for the execution, by
271 means of an XML file. It describes the properties of the platform, such as
272 the computing nodes with their computing power, the interconnection links with
273 their bandwidth and latency, and the routing strategy. The scheduling of the
274 simulated processes, as well as the simulated running time of the application
275 are computed according to these properties.
277 To compute the durations of the operations in the simulated world, and to take
278 into account resource sharing (e.g. bandwidth sharing between competing
279 communications), SimGrid uses a fluid model. This allows users to run relatively fast
280 simulations, while still keeping accurate
281 results~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward,
282 velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. Moreover, depending on the
283 simulated application, SimGrid/SMPI allows to skip long lasting computations and
284 to only take their duration into account. When the real computations cannot be
285 skipped, but the results are unimportant for the simulation results, it is
286 also possible to share dynamically allocated data structures between
287 several simulated processes, and thus to reduce the whole memory consumption.
288 These two techniques can help to run simulations on a very large scale.
290 The validity of simulations with SimGrid has been asserted by several studies.
291 See, for example, \cite{velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity} and articles
292 referenced therein for the validity of the network models. Comparisons between
293 real execution of MPI applications on the one hand, and their simulation with
294 SMPI on the other hand, are presented in~\cite{guermouche+renard.2010.first,
295 clauss+stillwell+genaud+al.2011.single,
296 bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}. All these works conclude that
297 SimGrid is able to simulate pretty accurately the real behavior of the
299 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
301 \section{Two-stage multisplitting methods}
303 \subsection{Synchronous and asynchronous two-stage methods for sparse linear systems}
305 In this paper we focus on two-stage multisplitting methods in their both versions (synchronous and asynchronous)~\cite{Frommer92,Szyld92,Bru95}. These iterative methods are based on multisplitting methods~\cite{O'leary85,White86,Alefeld97} and use two nested iterations: the outer iteration and the inner iteration. Let us consider the following sparse linear system of $n$ equations in $\mathbb{R}$:
310 where $A$ is a sparse square and nonsingular matrix, $b$ is the right-hand side and $x$ is the solution of the system. Our work in this paper is restricted to the block Jacobi splitting method. This approach of multisplitting consists in partitioning the matrix $A$ into $L$ horizontal band matrices of order $\frac{n}{L}\times n$ without overlapping (i.e. sub-vectors $\{x_\ell\}_{1\leq\ell\leq L}$ are disjoint). Two-stage multisplitting methods solve the linear system~(\ref{eq:01}) iteratively as follows:
312 x_\ell^{k+1} = A_{\ell\ell}^{-1}(b_\ell - \displaystyle\sum^{L}_{\substack{m=1\\m\neq\ell}}{A_{\ell m}x^k_m}),\mbox{~for~}\ell=1,\ldots,L\mbox{~and~}k=1,2,3,\ldots
315 where $x_\ell$ are sub-vectors of the solution $x$, $b_\ell$ are the sub-vectors of the right-hand side $b$, and $A_{\ell\ell}$ and $A_{\ell m}$ are diagonal and off-diagonal blocks of matrix $A$ respectively. The iterations of these methods can naturally be computed in parallel such that each processor or cluster of processors is responsible for solving one splitting as a linear sub-system:
317 A_{\ell\ell} x_\ell = c_\ell,\mbox{~for~}\ell=1,\ldots,L,
320 where right-hand sides $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m$ are computed using the shared vectors $x_m$. In this paper, we use the well-known iterative method GMRES~\cite{saad86} as an inner iteration to approximate the solutions of the different splittings arising from the block Jacobi multisplitting of matrix $A$. The algorithm in Figure~\ref{alg:01} shows the main key points of our block Jacobi two-stage method executed by a cluster of processors. In line~\ref{solve}, the linear sub-system~(\ref{eq:03}) is solved in parallel using GMRES method where $\MIG$ and $\TOLG$ are the maximum number of inner iterations and the tolerance threshold for GMRES respectively. The convergence of the two-stage multisplitting methods, based on synchronous or asynchronous iterations, has been studied by many authors for example~\cite{Bru95,bahi07}.
323 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
324 %\caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
325 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
326 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
327 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
328 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
329 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
330 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
331 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$\label{solve}
332 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters\label{send}
333 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters\label{recv}
336 \caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
341 In this paper, we propose two algorithms of two-stage multisplitting methods. The first algorithm is based on the asynchronous model which allows communications to be overlapped by computations and reduces the idle times resulting from the synchronizations. So in the asynchronous mode, our two-stage algorithm uses asynchronous outer iterations and asynchronous communications between clusters. The communications (i.e. lines~\ref{send} and~\ref{recv} in Figure~\ref{alg:01}) are performed by message passing using MPI non-blocking communication routines. The convergence of the asynchronous iterations is detected when all clusters have locally converged:
343 k\geq\MIM\mbox{~or~}\|x_\ell^{k+1}-x_\ell^k\|_{\infty }\leq\TOLM,
346 where $\MIM$ is the maximum number of outer iterations and $\TOLM$ is the tolerance threshold for the two-stage algorithm.
348 The second two-stage algorithm is based on synchronous outer iterations. We propose to use the Krylov iteration based on residual minimization to improve the slow convergence of the multisplitting methods. In this case, a $n\times s$ matrix $S$ is set using solutions issued from the inner iteration:
350 S=[x^1,x^2,\ldots,x^s],~s\ll n.
353 At each $s$ outer iterations, the algorithm computes a new approximation $\tilde{x}=S\alpha$ which minimizes the residual:
355 \min_{\alpha\in\mathbb{R}^s}{\|b-AS\alpha\|_2}.
358 The algorithm in Figure~\ref{alg:02} includes the procedure of the residual minimization and the outer iteration is restarted with a new approximation $\tilde{x}$ at every $s$ iterations. The least-squares problem~(\ref{eq:06}) is solved in parallel by all clusters using CGLS method~\cite{Hestenes52} such that $\MIC$ is the maximum number of iterations and $\TOLC$ is the tolerance threshold for this method (line~\ref{cgls} in Figure~\ref{alg:02}).
361 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
362 %\caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
363 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
364 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
365 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
366 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
367 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
368 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
369 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$
370 \State $S_{\ell,k\mod s}=x_\ell^k$
372 \State $\alpha = Solve_{cgls}(AS,b,\MIC,\TOLC)$\label{cgls}
373 \State $\tilde{x_\ell}=S_\ell\alpha$
374 \State Send $\tilde{x_\ell}$ to neighboring clusters
376 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters
378 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters
381 \caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
386 \subsection{Simulation of the two-stage methods using SimGrid toolkit}
389 One of our objectives when simulating the application in SimGrid is, as in real
390 life, to get accurate results (solutions of the problem) but also to ensure the
391 test reproducibility under the same conditions. According to our experience,
392 very few modifications are required to adapt a MPI program for the SimGrid
393 simulator using SMPI (Simulator MPI). The first modification is to include SMPI
394 libraries and related header files (\verb+smpi.h+). The second modification is to
395 suppress all global variables by replacing them with local variables or using a
396 SimGrid selector called "runtime automatic switching"
397 (smpi/privatize\_global\_variables). Indeed, global variables can generate side
398 effects on runtime between the threads running in the same process and generated by
399 SimGrid to simulate the grid environment.
401 \paragraph{Parameters of the simulation in SimGrid}
402 \ \\ \noindent Before running a SimGrid benchmark, many parameters for the
403 computation platform must be defined. For our experiments, we consider platforms
404 in which several clusters are geographically distant, so there are intra and
405 inter-cluster communications. In the following, these parameters are described:
408 \item hostfile: hosts description file.
409 \item platform: file describing the platform architecture: clusters (CPU power,
410 \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network (bandwidth $bw$,
411 latency $lat$, \dots{}).
412 \item archi : grid computational description (number of clusters, number of
413 nodes/processors in each cluster).
416 In addition, the following arguments are given to the programs at runtime:
419 \item maximum number of inner iterations $\MIG$ and outer iterations $\MIM$,
420 \item inner precision $\TOLG$ and outer precision $\TOLM$,
421 \item matrix sizes of the problem: N$_{x}$, N$_{y}$ and N$_{z}$ on axis $x$, $y$ and $z$ respectively (in our experiments, we solve 3D problem, see Section~\ref{3dpoisson}),
422 \item matrix diagonal value is fixed to $6.0$ for synchronous experiments and $6.2$ for asynchronous ones,
423 \item matrix off-diagonal value is fixed to $-1.0$,
424 \item number of vectors in matrix $S$ (i.e. value of $s$),
425 \item maximum number of iterations $\MIC$ and precision $\TOLC$ for CGLS method,
426 \item maximum number of iterations and precision for the classical GMRES method,
427 \item maximum number of restarts for the Arnorldi process in GMRES method,
428 \item execution mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
431 It should also be noticed that both solvers have been executed with the SimGrid selector \texttt{-cfg=smpi/running\_power} which determines the computational power (here 19GFlops) of the simulator host machine.
433 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
434 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
436 \section{Experimental results}
439 In this section, experiments for both multisplitting algorithms are reported. First the 3D Poisson problem used in our experiments is described.
441 \subsection{The 3D Poisson problem}
445 We use our two-stage algorithms to solve the well-known Poisson problem $\nabla^2\phi=f$~\cite{Polyanin01}. In three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates in $\mathbb{R}^3$, the problem takes the following form:
447 \frac{\partial^2}{\partial x^2}\phi(x,y,z)+\frac{\partial^2}{\partial y^2}\phi(x,y,z)+\frac{\partial^2}{\partial z^2}\phi(x,y,z)=f(x,y,z)\mbox{~in the domain~}\Omega
452 \phi(x,y,z)=0\mbox{~on the boundary~}\partial\Omega
454 where the real-valued function $\phi(x,y,z)$ is the solution sought, $f(x,y,z)$ is a known function and $\Omega=[0,1]^3$. The 3D discretization of the Laplace operator $\nabla^2$ with the finite difference scheme includes 7 points stencil on the computational grid. The numerical approximation of the Poisson problem on three-dimensional grid is repeatedly computed as $\phi=\phi^\star$ such that:
457 \phi^\star(x,y,z)=&\frac{1}{6}(\phi(x-h,y,z)+\phi(x,y-h,z)+\phi(x,y,z-h)\\&+\phi(x+h,y,z)+\phi(x,y+h,z)+\phi(x,y,z+h)\\&-h^2f(x,y,z))
461 until convergence where $h$ is the grid spacing between two adjacent elements in the 3D computational grid.
463 In the parallel context, the 3D Poisson problem is partitioned into $L\times p$ sub-problems such that $L$ is the number of clusters and $p$ is the number of processors in each cluster. We apply the three-dimensional partitioning instead of the row-by-row one in order to reduce the size of the data shared at the sub-problems boundaries. In this case, each processor is in charge of parallelepipedic block of the problem and has at most six neighbors in the same cluster or in distant clusters with which it shares data at boundaries.
465 \subsection{Study setup and simulation methodology}
467 First, to conduct our study, we propose the following methodology
468 which can be reused for any grid-enabled applications.\\
470 \textbf{Step 1}: Choose with the end users the class of algorithms or
471 the application to be tested. Numerical parallel iterative algorithms
472 have been chosen for the study in this paper. \\
474 \textbf{Step 2}: Collect the software materials needed for the experimentation.
475 In our case, we have two variants algorithms for the resolution of the
476 3D-Poisson problem: (1) using the classical GMRES; (2) and the multisplitting
477 method. In addition, the SimGrid simulator has been chosen to simulate the
478 behaviors of the distributed applications. SimGrid is running in a virtual
479 machine on a simple laptop. \\
481 \textbf{Step 3}: Fix the criteria which will be used for the future
482 results comparison and analysis. In the scope of this study, we retain
483 on the one hand the algorithm execution mode (synchronous and asynchronous)
484 and on the other hand the execution time and the number of iterations to reach the convergence. \\
486 \textbf{Step 4 }: Set up the different grid testbed environments that will be
487 simulated in the simulator tool to run the program. The following architectures
488 have been configured in SimGrid : 2$\times$16, 4$\times$8, 4$\times$16, 8$\times$8 and 2$\times$50. The first number
489 represents the number of clusters in the grid and the second number represents
490 the number of hosts (processors/cores) in each cluster. The network has been
491 designed to operate with a bandwidth equals to 10Gbits (resp. 1Gbits/s) and a
492 latency of 8.10$^{-6}$ seconds (resp. 5.10$^{-5}$) for the intra-clusters links
493 (resp. inter-clusters backbone links). \\
495 \textbf{Step 5}: Conduct an extensive and comprehensive testings
496 within these configurations by varying the key parameters, especially
497 the CPU power capacity, the network parameters and also the size of the
500 \textbf{Step 6} : Collect and analyze the output results.
502 \subsection{Factors impacting distributed applications performance in a grid environment}
504 When running a distributed application in a computational grid, many factors may
505 have a strong impact on the performance. First of all, the architecture of the
506 grid itself can obviously influence the performance results of the program. The
507 performance gain might be important theoretically when the number of clusters
508 and/or the number of nodes (processors/cores) in each individual cluster
511 Another important factor impacting the overall performance of the application
512 is the network configuration. Two main network parameters can modify drastically
513 the program output results:
515 \item the network bandwidth ($bw$ in bits/s) also known as "the data-carrying
516 capacity" of the network is defined as the maximum of data that can transit
517 from one point to another in a unit of time.
518 \item the network latency ($lat$ in microseconds) defined as the delay from the
519 start time to send a simple data from a source to a destination.
521 Upon the network characteristics, another impacting factor is the volume of data exchanged between the nodes in the cluster
522 and between distant clusters. This parameter is application dependent.
524 In a grid environment, it is common to distinguish, on the one hand, the
525 "intra-network" which refers to the links between nodes within a cluster and
526 on the other hand, the "inter-network" which is the backbone link between
527 clusters. In practice, these two networks have different speeds.
528 The intra-network generally works like a high speed local network with a
529 high bandwidth and very low latency. In opposite, the inter-network connects
530 clusters sometime via heterogeneous networks components through internet with
531 a lower speed. The network between distant clusters might be a bottleneck
532 for the global performance of the application.
534 \subsection{Comparison of GMRES and Krylov Multisplitting algorithms in synchronous mode}
536 In the scope of this paper, our first objective is to analyze when the Krylov
537 Multisplitting method has better performance than the classical GMRES
538 method. With a synchronous iterative method, better performance means a
539 smaller number of iterations and execution time before reaching the convergence.
540 For a systematic study, the experiments should figure out that, for various
541 grid parameters values, the simulator will confirm the targeted outcomes,
542 particularly for poor and slow networks, focusing on the impact on the
543 communication performance on the chosen class of algorithm.
545 The following paragraphs present the test conditions, the output results
549 \subsubsection{Execution of the algorithms on various computational grid
550 architectures and scaling up the input matrix size}
556 \begin{tabular}{r c }
558 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 16, 4 $\times$ 8, 4 $\times$ 16 and 8 $\times$ 8\\ %\hline
559 Inter Network N2 & bw=1Gbits/s - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
560 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ $\times$ N$_{y}$ $\times$ N$_{z}$ =150 $\times$ 150 $\times$ 150\\ %\hline
561 - & N$_{x}$ $\times$ N$_{y}$ $\times$ N$_{z}$ =170 $\times$ 170 $\times$ 170 \\ \hline
563 \caption{Test conditions: various grid configurations with the input matrix size N$_{x}$=N$_{y}$=N$_{z}$=150 or 170 \RC{N2 n'est pas défini..}\RC{Nx est défini, Ny? Nz?}
564 \AG{La lettre 'x' n'est pas le symbole de la multiplication. Utiliser \texttt{\textbackslash times}. Idem dans le texte, les figures, etc.}}
573 In this section, we analyze the performance of algorithms running on various
574 grid configurations (2 $\times$ 16, 4 $\times$ 8, 4 $\times$ 16 and 8 $\times$ 8) and using an inter-network N2 defined in the test conditions in Table~\ref{tab:01}. First, the results in Figure~\ref{fig:01}
575 show for all grid configurations the non-variation of the number of iterations of
576 classical GMRES for a given input matrix size; it is not the case for the
577 multisplitting method.
579 %\RC{CE attention tu n'as pas mis de label dans tes figures, donc c'est le bordel, j'en mets mais vérifie...}
580 %\RC{Les légendes ne sont pas explicites...}
585 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_nx_150_and_nx_170.pdf}
587 \caption{Various grid configurations with the input matrix size $N_{x}=150$ and $N_{x}=170$\RC{idem}
588 \AG{Utiliser le point comme séparateur décimal et non la virgule. Idem dans les autres figures.}}
593 Secondly, the execution times between the two algorithms is significant with different
594 grid architectures, even with the same number of processors (for example, 2 $\times$ 16
595 and 4 $\times$ 8). We can observ the sensitivity of the Krylov multisplitting method
596 (compared with the classical GMRES) when scaling up the number of the processors
597 in the grid: in average, the reduction of the execution time for GMRES (resp. Multisplitting) algorithm is around $40\%$ (resp. around $48\%$) when running from 32 (grid 2 $\times$ 16) to 64 processors (grid 8 $\times$ 8) processors. \RC{pas très clair, c'est pas précis de dire qu'un algo perform mieux qu'un autre, selon quel critère?}
599 \subsubsection{Running on two different inter-clusters network speeds \\}
603 \begin{tabular}{r c }
605 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 16, 4 $\times$ 8\\ %\hline
606 Inter Networks & N1 : bw=10Gbs-lat=8.10$^{-6}$ \\ %\hline
607 - & N2 : bw=1Gbs-lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\
608 Input matrix size & $N_{x} \times N_{y} \times N_{z} =150 \times 150 \times 150$\\ \hline
610 \caption{Test conditions: grid 2 $\times$ 16 and 4 $\times$ 8 with networks N1 vs N2}
615 In this section, the experiments compare the behavior of the algorithms running on a
616 speeder inter-cluster network (N1) and also on a less performant network (N2) respectively defined in the test conditions Table~\ref{tab:02}. \RC{Il faut définir cela avant...}
617 Figure~\ref{fig:02} shows that end users will reduce the execution time
618 for both algorithms when using a grid architecture like 4 $\times$ 16 or 8 $\times$ 8: the reduction is about $2$. The results depict also that when
619 the network speed drops down (variation of 12.5\%), the difference between the two Multisplitting algorithms execution times can reach more than 25\%.
623 %\begin{wrapfigure}{l}{100mm}
626 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_n1_x_n2.pdf}
627 \caption{Grid 2 $\times$ 16 and 4 $\times$ 8 with networks N1 vs N2
628 \AG{\np{8E-6}, \np{5E-6} au lieu de 8E-6, 5E-6}}
634 \subsubsection{Network latency impacts on performance}
638 \begin{tabular}{r c }
640 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 16\\ %\hline
641 Network & N1 : bw=1Gbs \\ %\hline
642 Input matrix size & $N_{x} \times N_{y} \times N_{z} = 150 \times 150 \times 150$\\ \hline
644 \caption{Test conditions: network latency impacts}
652 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_latency_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
653 \caption{Network latency impacts on execution time
659 According to the results of Figure~\ref{fig:03}, a degradation of the network
660 latency from $8.10^{-6}$ to $6.10^{-5}$ implies an absolute time increase of
661 more than $75\%$ (resp. $82\%$) of the execution for the classical GMRES
662 (resp. Krylov multisplitting) algorithm. In addition, it appears that the
663 Krylov multisplitting method tolerates more the network latency variation with a
664 less rate increase of the execution time.\RC{Les 2 précédentes phrases me
665 semblent en contradiction....} Consequently, in the worst case ($lat=6.10^{-5
666 }$), the execution time for GMRES is almost the double than the time of the
667 Krylov multisplitting, even though, the performance was on the same order of
668 magnitude with a latency of $8.10^{-6}$.
670 \subsubsection{Network bandwidth impacts on performance}
674 \begin{tabular}{r c }
676 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 16\\ %\hline
677 Network & N1 : bw=1Gbs - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
678 Input matrix size & $N_{x} \times N_{y} \times N_{z} =150 \times 150 \times 150$\\ \hline \\
680 \caption{Test conditions: Network bandwidth impacts\RC{Qu'est ce qui varie ici? Il n'y a pas de variation dans le tableau}}
687 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_bandwith_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
688 \caption{Network bandwith impacts on execution time
689 \AG{``Execution time'' avec un 't' minuscule}. Idem autres figures.}
693 The results of increasing the network bandwidth show the improvement of the
694 performance for both algorithms by reducing the execution time (see
695 Figure~\ref{fig:04}). However, in this case, the Krylov multisplitting method
696 presents a better performance in the considered bandwidth interval with a gain
697 of $40\%$ which is only around $24\%$ for the classical GMRES.
699 \subsubsection{Input matrix size impacts on performance}
703 \begin{tabular}{r c }
705 Grid Architecture & 4 $\times$ 8\\ %\hline
706 Network & N2 : bw=1Gbs - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\
707 Input matrix size & $N_{x}$ = From 40 to 200\\ \hline
709 \caption{Test conditions: Input matrix size impacts}
716 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{pb_size_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
717 \caption{Problem size impacts on execution time}
721 In these experiments, the input matrix size has been set from $N_{x} = N_{y}
722 = N_{z} = 40$ to $200$ side elements that is from $40^{3} = 64.000$ to $200^{3}
723 = 8,000,000$ points. Obviously, as shown in Figure~\ref{fig:05}, the execution
724 time for both algorithms increases when the input matrix size also increases.
725 But the interesting results are:
727 \item the drastic increase ($10$ times) of the number of iterations needed to
728 reach the convergence for the classical GMRES algorithm when the matrix size
729 go beyond $N_{x}=150$; \RC{C'est toujours pas clair... ok le nommbre d'itérations est 10 fois plus long mais la suite de la phrase ne veut rien dire}
730 \item the classical GMRES execution time is almost the double for $N_{x}=140$
731 compared with the Krylov multisplitting method.
734 These findings may help a lot end users to setup the best and the optimal
735 targeted environment for the application deployment when focusing on the problem
736 size scale up. It should be noticed that the same test has been done with the
737 grid 2 $\times$ 16 leading to the same conclusion.
739 \subsubsection{CPU Power impacts on performance}
743 \begin{tabular}{r c }
745 Grid architecture & 2 $\times$ 16\\ %\hline
746 Network & N2 : bw=1Gbs - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
747 Input matrix size & $N_{x} = 150 \times 150 \times 150$\\ \hline
749 \caption{Test conditions: CPU Power impacts}
755 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cpu_power_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
756 \caption{CPU Power impacts on execution time}
760 Using the Simgrid simulator flexibility, we have tried to determine the impact
761 on the algorithms performance in varying the CPU power of the clusters nodes
762 from $1$ to $19$ GFlops. The outputs depicted in Figure~\ref{fig:06} confirm the
763 performance gain, around $95\%$ for both of the two methods, after adding more
766 %\DL{il faut une conclusion sur ces tests : ils confirment les résultats déjà
767 %obtenus en grandeur réelle. Donc c'est une aide précieuse pour les dev. Pas
768 %besoin de déployer sur une archi réelle}
770 To conclude these series of experiments, with SimGrid we have been able to make
771 many simulations with many parameters variations. Doing all these experiments
772 with a real platform is most of the time not possible. Moreover the behavior of
773 both GMRES and Krylov multisplitting methods is in accordance with larger real
774 executions on large scale supercomputer~\cite{couturier15}.
777 \subsection{Comparing GMRES in native synchronous mode and the multisplitting algorithm in asynchronous mode}
779 The previous paragraphs put in evidence the interests to simulate the behavior
780 of the application before any deployment in a real environment. In this
781 section, following the same previous methodology, our goal is to compare the
782 efficiency of the multisplitting method in \textit{ asynchronous mode} compared with the
783 classical GMRES in \textit{synchronous mode}.
785 The interest of using an asynchronous algorithm is that there is no more
786 synchronization. With geographically distant clusters, this may be essential.
787 In this case, each processor can compute its iteration freely without any
788 synchronization with the other processors. Thus, the asynchronous may
789 theoretically reduce the overall execution time and can improve the algorithm
792 \RC{la phrase suivante est bizarre, je ne comprends pas pourquoi elle vient ici}
793 In this section, Simgrid simulator tool has been successfully used to show
794 the efficiency of the multisplitting in asynchronous mode and to find the best
795 combination of the grid resources (CPU, Network, input matrix size, \ldots ) to
796 get the highest \textit{"relative gain"} (exec\_time$_{GMRES}$ /
797 exec\_time$_{multisplitting}$) in comparison with the classical GMRES time.
800 The test conditions are summarized in the table~\ref{tab:07}: \\
804 \begin{tabular}{r c }
806 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 50 totaling 100 processors\\ %\hline
807 Processors Power & 1 GFlops to 1.5 GFlops\\
808 Intra-Network & bw=1.25 Gbits - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
809 Inter-Network & bw=5 Mbits - lat=2.10$^{-2}$\\
810 Input matrix size & $N_{x}$ = From 62 to 150\\ %\hline
811 Residual error precision & 10$^{-5}$ to 10$^{-9}$\\ \hline \\
813 \caption{Test conditions: GMRES in synchronous mode vs Krylov Multisplitting in asynchronous mode}
817 Again, comprehensive and extensive tests have been conducted with different
818 parameters as the CPU power, the network parameters (bandwidth and latency)
819 and with different problem size. The relative gains greater than $1$ between the
820 two algorithms have been captured after each step of the test. In
821 Table~\ref{tab:08} are reported the best grid configurations allowing
822 the multisplitting method to be more than $2.5$ times faster than the
823 classical GMRES. These experiments also show the relative tolerance of the
824 multisplitting algorithm when using a low speed network as usually observed with
825 geographically distant clusters through the internet.
827 % use the same column width for the following three tables
828 \newlength{\mytablew}\settowidth{\mytablew}{\footnotesize\np{E-11}}
829 \newenvironment{mytable}[1]{% #1: number of columns for data
830 \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.3}%
831 \begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}r%
832 |*{#1}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{\mytablew}|}}}{%
839 % \caption{Relative gain of the multisplitting algorithm compared with the classical GMRES}
844 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 \\
847 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 \\
850 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 \\
853 & 62 & 62 & 62 & 100 & 100 & 110 & 120 & 130 & 140 & 150 \\
856 & \np{E-5} & \np{E-8} & \np{E-9} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11} & \np{E-11}\\
859 & 2.52 & 2.55 & 2.52 & 2.57 & 2.54 & 2.53 & 2.51 & 2.58 & 2.55 & 2.54 \\
863 \caption{Relative gain of the multisplitting algorithm compared with the classical GMRES}
870 In this paper we have presented the simulation of the execution of three
871 different parallel solvers on some multi-core architectures. We have show that
872 the SimGrid toolkit is an interesting simulation tool that has allowed us to
873 determine which method to choose given a specified multi-core architecture.
874 Moreover the simulated results are in accordance (i.e. with the same order of
875 magnitude) with the works presented in~\cite{couturier15}. Simulated results
876 also confirm the efficiency of the asynchronous multisplitting
877 algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES especially in case of
878 geographically distant clusters.
880 These results are important since it is very time consuming to find optimal
881 configuration and deployment requirements for a given application on a given
882 multi-core architecture. Finding good resource allocations policies under
883 varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very challenging and labor
884 intensive. This problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous
885 scheme where a small parameter variation of the execution platform and of the
886 application data can lead to very different numbers of iterations to reach the
887 converge and so to very different execution times.
890 In future works, we plan to investigate how to simulate the behavior of really
891 large scale applications. For example, if we are interested to simulate the
892 execution of the solvers of this paper with thousand or even dozens of thousands
893 or core, it is not possible to do that with SimGrid. In fact, this tool will
894 make the real computation. So we plan to focus our research on that problematic.
898 %\section*{Acknowledgment}
900 This work is partially funded by the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
902 \bibliographystyle{wileyj}
903 \bibliography{biblio}
912 %%% ispell-local-dictionary: "american"