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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 developpers to better tune their applications for a given multi-core
108 In particular we focus our attention on two parallel iterative algorithms based
109 on the Multisplitting algorithm and we compare them to the GMRES algorithm.
110 These algorithms are used to solve linear systems. Two different variants of
111 the Multisplitting are studied: one using synchronoous iterations and another
112 one with asynchronous iterations. For each algorithm we have simulated
113 different architecture parameters to evaluate their influence on the overall
114 execution time. The obtain simulated results confirm the real results
115 previously obtained on different real multi-core architectures and also confirm
116 the efficiency of the asynchronous multisplitting algorithm compared to the
117 synchronous GMRES method.
121 %\keywords{Algorithm; distributed; iterative; asynchronous; simulation; simgrid;
123 \keywords{ Performance evaluation, Simulation, SimGrid, Synchronous and asynchronous iterations, Multisplitting algorithms}
127 \section{Introduction} The use of multi-core architectures to solve large
128 scientific problems seems to become imperative in many situations.
129 Whatever the scale of these architectures (distributed clusters, computational
130 grids, embedded multi-core,~\ldots) they are generally well adapted to execute
131 complex parallel applications operating on a large amount of data.
132 Unfortunately, users (industrials or scientists), who need such computational
133 resources, may not have an easy access to such efficient architectures. The cost
134 of using the platform and/or the cost of testing and deploying an application
135 are often very important. So, in this context it is difficult to optimize a
136 given application for a given architecture. In this way and in order to reduce
137 the access cost to these computing resources it seems very interesting to use a
138 simulation environment. The advantages are numerous: development life cycle,
139 code debugging, ability to obtain results quickly\dots{} In counterpart, the simulation results need to be consistent with the real ones.
141 In this paper we focus on a class of highly efficient parallel algorithms called
142 \emph{iterative algorithms}. The parallel scheme of iterative methods is quite
143 simple. It generally involves the division of the problem into several
144 \emph{blocks} that will be solved in parallel on multiple processing
145 units. Each processing unit has to compute an iteration to send/receive some
146 data dependencies to/from its neighbors and to iterate this process until the
147 convergence of the method. Several well-known studies demonstrate the
148 convergence of these algorithms~\cite{BT89,bahi07}. In this processing mode a
149 task cannot begin a new iteration while it has not received data dependencies
150 from its neighbors. We say that the iteration computation follows a
151 \textit{synchronous} scheme. In the asynchronous scheme a task can compute a new
152 iteration without having to wait for the data dependencies coming from its
153 neighbors. Both communication and computations are \textit{asynchronous}
154 inducing that there is no more idle time, due to synchronizations, between two
155 iterations~\cite{bcvc06:ij}. This model presents some advantages and drawbacks
156 that we detail in section~\ref{sec:asynchro} but even if the number of
157 iterations required to converge is generally greater than for the synchronous
158 case, it appears that the asynchronous iterative scheme can significantly
159 reduce overall execution times by suppressing idle times due to
160 synchronizations~(see~\cite{bahi07} for more details).
162 Nevertheless, in both cases (synchronous or asynchronous) it is very time
163 consuming to find optimal configuration and deployment requirements for a given
164 application on a given multi-core architecture. Finding good resource
165 allocations policies under varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very
166 challenging and labor intensive~\cite{Calheiros:2011:CTM:1951445.1951450}. This
167 problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous scheme where a small
168 parameter variation of the execution platform and of the application data can
169 lead to very different numbers of iterations to reach the converge and so to
170 very different execution times. In this challenging context we think that the
171 use of a simulation tool can greatly leverage the possibility of testing various
174 The {\bf main contribution of this paper} is to show that the use of a
175 simulation tool (i.e. the SimGrid toolkit~\cite{SimGrid}) in the context of real
176 parallel applications (i.e. large linear system solvers) can help developers to
177 better tune their application for a given multi-core architecture. To show the
178 validity of this approach we first compare the simulated execution of the Krylov
179 multisplitting algorithm with the GMRES (Generalized Minimal Residual)
180 solver~\cite{saad86} in synchronous mode. The simulation results allow us to
181 determine which method to choose given a specified multi-core architecture.
182 Moreover the obtained results on different simulated multi-core architectures
183 confirm the real results previously obtained on non simulated architectures.
184 More precisely the simulated results are in accordance (i.e. with the same order
185 of magnitude) with the works presented in~\cite{couturier15}, which show that
186 the synchronous multisplitting method is more efficient than GMRES for large
187 scale clusters. Simulated results also confirm the efficiency of the
188 asynchronous multisplitting algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES
189 especially in case of geographically distant clusters.
191 In this way and with a simple computing architecture (a laptop) SimGrid allows us
192 to run a test campaign of a real parallel iterative applications on
193 different simulated multi-core architectures. To our knowledge, there is no
194 related work on the large-scale multi-core simulation of a real synchronous and
195 asynchronous iterative application.
197 This paper is organized as follows. Section~\ref{sec:asynchro} presents the
198 iteration model we use and more particularly the asynchronous scheme. In
199 section~\ref{sec:simgrid} the SimGrid simulation toolkit is presented.
200 Section~\ref{sec:04} details the different solvers that we use. Finally our
201 experimental results are presented in section~\ref{sec:expe} followed by some
202 concluding remarks and perspectives.
205 \section{The asynchronous iteration model and the motivations of our work}
208 Asynchronous iterative methods have been studied for many years theoritecally and
209 practically. Many methods have been considered and convergence results have been
210 proved. These methods can be used to solve, in parallel, fixed point problems
211 (i.e. problems for which the solution is $x^\star =f(x^\star)$. In practice,
212 asynchronous iterations methods can be used to solve, for example, linear and
213 non-linear systems of equations or optimization problems, interested readers are
214 invited to read~\cite{BT89,bahi07}.
216 Before using an asynchronous iterative method, the convergence must be
217 studied. Otherwise, the application is not ensure to reach the convergence. An
218 algorithm that supports both the synchronous or the asynchronous iteration model
219 requires very few modifications to be able to be executed in both variants. In
220 practice, only the communications and convergence detection are different. In
221 the synchronous mode, iterations are synchronized whereas in the asynchronous
222 one, they are not. It should be noticed that non blocking communications can be
223 used in both modes. Concerning the convergence detection, synchronous variants
224 can use a global convergence procedure which acts as a global synchronization
225 point. In the asynchronous model, the convergence detection is more tricky as
226 it must not synchronize all the processors. Interested readers can
227 consult~\cite{myBCCV05c,bahi07,ccl09:ij}.
229 The number of iterations required to reach the convergence is generally greater
230 for the asynchronous scheme (this number depends depends on the delay of the
231 messages). Note that, it is not the case in the synchronous mode where the
232 number of iterations is the same than in the sequential mode. In this way, the
233 set of the parameters of the platform (number of nodes, power of nodes,
234 inter and intra clusters bandwidth and latency, \ldots) and of the
235 application can drastically change the number of iterations required to get the
236 convergence. It follows that asynchronous iterative algorithms are difficult to
237 optimize since the financial and deployment costs on large scale multi-core
238 architecture are often very important. So, prior to delpoyment and tests it
239 seems very promising to be able to simulate the behavior of asynchronous
240 iterative algorithms. The problematic is then to show that the results produce
241 by simulation are in accordance with reality i.e. of the same order of
242 magnitude. To our knowledge, there is no study on this problematic.
246 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.
248 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
249 % SimGrid~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid,casanova+giersch+legrand+al.2014.versatile}
250 % is a simulation framework to study the behavior of large-scale distributed
251 % systems. As its name suggests, it emanates from the grid computing community,
252 % but is nowadays used to study grids, clouds, HPC or peer-to-peer systems. The
253 % early versions of SimGrid date back from 1999, but it is still actively
254 % developed and distributed as an open source software. Today, it is one of the
255 % major generic tools in the field of simulation for large-scale distributed
258 SimGrid provides several programming interfaces: MSG to simulate Concurrent
259 Sequential Processes, SimDAG to simulate DAGs of (parallel) tasks, and SMPI to
260 run real applications written in MPI~\cite{MPI}. Apart from the native C
261 interface, SimGrid provides bindings for the C++, Java, Lua and Ruby programming
262 languages. SMPI is the interface that has been used for the work described in
263 this paper. The SMPI interface implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0
264 standard~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}, and supports
265 applications written in C or Fortran, with little or no modifications (cf Section IV - paragraph B).
267 Within SimGrid, the execution of a distributed application is simulated by a
268 single process. The application code is really executed, but some operations,
269 like communications, are intercepted, and their running time is computed
270 according to the characteristics of the simulated execution platform. The
271 description of this target platform is given as an input for the execution, by
272 means of an XML file. It describes the properties of the platform, such as
273 the computing nodes with their computing power, the interconnection links with
274 their bandwidth and latency, and the routing strategy. The scheduling of the
275 simulated processes, as well as the simulated running time of the application
276 are computed according to these properties.
278 To compute the durations of the operations in the simulated world, and to take
279 into account resource sharing (e.g. bandwidth sharing between competing
280 communications), SimGrid uses a fluid model. This allows users to run relatively fast
281 simulations, while still keeping accurate
282 results~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward,
283 velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. Moreover, depending on the
284 simulated application, SimGrid/SMPI allows to skip long lasting computations and
285 to only take their duration into account. When the real computations cannot be
286 skipped, but the results are unimportant for the simulation results, it is
287 also possible to share dynamically allocated data structures between
288 several simulated processes, and thus to reduce the whole memory consumption.
289 These two techniques can help to run simulations on a very large scale.
291 The validity of simulations with SimGrid has been asserted by several studies.
292 See, for example, \cite{velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity} and articles
293 referenced therein for the validity of the network models. Comparisons between
294 real execution of MPI applications on the one hand, and their simulation with
295 SMPI on the other hand, are presented in~\cite{guermouche+renard.2010.first,
296 clauss+stillwell+genaud+al.2011.single,
297 bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}. All these works conclude that
298 SimGrid is able to simulate pretty accurately the real behavior of the
300 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
302 \section{Two-stage multisplitting methods}
304 \subsection{Synchronous and asynchronous two-stage methods for sparse linear systems}
306 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 $\mathbb{R}$:
311 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:
313 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
316 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:
318 A_{\ell\ell} x_\ell = c_\ell,\mbox{~for~}\ell=1,\ldots,L,
321 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 ({\it Generalized Minimal RESidual})~\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}.
324 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
325 %\caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
326 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
327 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
328 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
329 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
330 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
331 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
332 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$\label{solve}
333 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters\label{send}
334 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters\label{recv}
337 \caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
342 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:
344 k\geq\MIM\mbox{~or~}\|x_\ell^{k+1}-x_\ell^k\|_{\infty }\leq\TOLM,
347 where $\MIM$ is the maximum number of outer iterations and $\TOLM$ is the tolerance threshold for the two-stage algorithm.
349 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:
351 S=[x^1,x^2,\ldots,x^s],~s\ll n.
354 At each $s$ outer iterations, the algorithm computes a new approximation $\tilde{x}=S\alpha$ which minimizes the residual:
356 \min_{\alpha\in\mathbb{R}^s}{\|b-AS\alpha\|_2}.
359 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}).
362 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
363 %\caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
364 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
365 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
366 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
367 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
368 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
369 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
370 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$
371 \State $S_{\ell,k\mod s}=x_\ell^k$
373 \State $\alpha = Solve_{cgls}(AS,b,\MIC,\TOLC)$\label{cgls}
374 \State $\tilde{x_\ell}=S_\ell\alpha$
375 \State Send $\tilde{x_\ell}$ to neighboring clusters
377 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters
379 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters
382 \caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
387 \subsection{Simulation of the two-stage methods using SimGrid toolkit}
390 One of our objectives when simulating the application in Simgrid is, as in real
391 life, to get accurate results (solutions of the problem) but also to ensure the
392 test reproducibility under the same conditions. According to our experience,
393 very few modifications are required to adapt a MPI program for the Simgrid
394 simulator using SMPI (Simulator MPI). The first modification is to include SMPI
395 libraries and related header files (smpi.h). The second modification is to
396 suppress all global variables by replacing them with local variables or using a
397 Simgrid selector called "runtime automatic switching"
398 (smpi/privatize\_global\_variables). Indeed, global variables can generate side
399 effects on runtime between the threads running in the same process and generated by
400 Simgrid to simulate the grid environment.
402 %\RC{On vire cette phrase ?} \RCE {Si c'est la phrase d'avant sur les threads, je pense qu'on peut la retenir car c'est l'explication du pourquoi Simgrid n'aime pas les variables globales. Si c'est pas bien dit, on peut la reformuler. Si c'est la phrase ci-apres, effectivement, on peut la virer si elle preterais a discussion}The
403 %last modification on the MPI program pointed out for some cases, the review of
404 %the sequence of the MPI\_Isend, MPI\_Irecv and MPI\_Waitall instructions which
405 %might cause an infinite loop.
408 \paragraph{Simgrid Simulator parameters}
409 \ \\ \noindent Before running a Simgrid benchmark, many parameters for the
410 computation platform must be defined. For our experiments, we consider platforms
411 in which several clusters are geographically distant, so there are intra and
412 inter-cluster communications. In the following, these parameters are described:
415 \item hostfile: hosts description file.
416 \item platform: file describing the platform architecture: clusters (CPU power,
417 \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network (bandwidth bw,
418 latency lat, \dots{}).
419 \item archi : grid computational description (number of clusters, number of
420 nodes/processors for each cluster).
423 In addition, the following arguments are given to the programs at runtime:
426 \item maximum number of inner iterations $\MIG$ and outer iterations $\MIM$,
427 \item inner precision $\TOLG$ and outer precision $\TOLM$,
428 \item matrix sizes of the 3D Poisson problem: N$_{x}$, N$_{y}$ and N$_{z}$ on axis $x$, $y$ and $z$ respectively,
429 \item matrix diagonal value is fixed to $6.0$ for synchronous Krylov multisplitting experiments and $6.2$ for asynchronous block Jacobi experiments,
430 \item matrix off-diagonal value is fixed to $-1.0$,
431 \item number of vectors in matrix $S$ (i.e. value of $s$),
432 \item maximum number of iterations $\MIC$ and precision $\TOLC$ for CGLS method,
433 \item maximum number of iterations and precision for the classical GMRES method,
434 \item maximum number of restarts for the Arnorldi process in GMRES method,
435 \item execution mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
438 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.
440 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
441 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
443 \section{Experimental Results}
446 In this section, experiments for both Multisplitting algorithms are reported. First the 3D Poisson problem used in our experiments is described.
448 \subsection{The 3D Poisson problem}
451 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:
453 \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
458 \phi(x,y,z)=0\mbox{~on the boundary~}\partial\Omega
460 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:
463 \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))
467 until convergence where $h$ is the grid spacing between two adjacent elements in the 3D computational grid.
469 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.
471 \subsection{Study setup and simulation methodology}
473 First, to conduct our study, we propose the following methodology
474 which can be reused for any grid-enabled applications.\\
476 \textbf{Step 1}: Choose with the end users the class of algorithms or
477 the application to be tested. Numerical parallel iterative algorithms
478 have been chosen for the study in this paper. \\
480 \textbf{Step 2}: Collect the software materials needed for the experimentation.
481 In our case, we have two variants algorithms for the resolution of the
482 3D-Poisson problem: (1) using the classical GMRES; (2) and the Multisplitting
483 method. In addition, the Simgrid simulator has been chosen to simulate the
484 behaviors of the distributed applications. Simgrid is running in a virtual
485 machine on a simple laptop. \\
487 \textbf{Step 3}: Fix the criteria which will be used for the future
488 results comparison and analysis. In the scope of this study, we retain
489 on the one hand the algorithm execution mode (synchronous and asynchronous)
490 and on the other hand the execution time and the number of iterations to reach the convergence. \\
492 \textbf{Step 4 }: Set up the different grid testbed environments that will be
493 simulated in the simulator tool to run the program. The following architecture
494 has been configured in Simgrid : 2x16, 4x8, 4x16, 8x8 and 2x50. The first number
495 represents the number of clusters in the grid and the second number represents
496 the number of hosts (processors/cores) in each cluster. The network has been
497 designed to operate with a bandwidth equals to 10Gbits (resp. 1Gbits/s) and a
498 latency of 8.10$^{-6}$ seconds (resp. 5.10$^{-5}$) for the intra-clusters links
499 (resp. inter-clusters backbone links). \\
501 \textbf{Step 5}: Conduct an extensive and comprehensive testings
502 within these configurations by varying the key parameters, especially
503 the CPU power capacity, the network parameters and also the size of the
506 \textbf{Step 6} : Collect and analyze the output results.
508 \subsection{Factors impacting distributed applications performance in
511 When running a distributed application in a computational grid, many factors may
512 have a strong impact on the performance. First of all, the architecture of the
513 grid itself can obviously influence the performance results of the program. The
514 performance gain might be important theoretically when the number of clusters
515 and/or the number of nodes (processors/cores) in each individual cluster
518 Another important factor impacting the overall performance of the application
519 is the network configuration. Two main network parameters can modify drastically
520 the program output results:
522 \item the network bandwidth (bw=bits/s) also known as "the data-carrying
523 capacity" of the network is defined as the maximum of data that can transit
524 from one point to another in a unit of time.
525 \item the network latency (lat : microsecond) defined as the delay from the
526 start time to send a simple data from a source to a destination.
528 Upon the network characteristics, another impacting factor is the volume of data exchanged between the nodes in the cluster
529 and between distant clusters. This parameter is application dependent.
531 In a grid environment, it is common to distinguish, on the one hand, the
532 "intra-network" which refers to the links between nodes within a cluster and
533 on the other hand, the "inter-network" which is the backbone link between
534 clusters. In practice, these two networks have different speeds.
535 The intra-network generally works like a high speed local network with a
536 high bandwith and very low latency. In opposite, the inter-network connects
537 clusters sometime via heterogeneous networks components throuth internet with
538 a lower speed. The network between distant clusters might be a bottleneck
539 for the global performance of the application.
541 \subsection{Comparison of GMRES and Krylov Multisplitting algorithms in synchronous mode}
543 In the scope of this paper, our first objective is to analyze when the Krylov
544 Multisplitting method has better performance than the classical GMRES
545 method. With a synchronous iterative method, better performance means a
546 smaller number of iterations and execution time before reaching the convergence.
547 For a systematic study, the experiments should figure out that, for various
548 grid parameters values, the simulator will confirm the targeted outcomes,
549 particularly for poor and slow networks, focusing on the impact on the
550 communication performance on the chosen class of algorithm.
552 The following paragraphs present the test conditions, the output results
556 \subsubsection{Execution of the algorithms on various computational grid
557 architectures and scaling up the input matrix size}
563 \begin{tabular}{r c }
565 Grid Architecture & 2x16, 4x8, 4x16 and 8x8\\ %\hline
566 Network & N2 : bw=1Gbits/s - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
567 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ x N$_{y}$ x N$_{z}$ =150 x 150 x 150\\ %\hline
568 - & N$_{x}$ x N$_{y}$ x N$_{z}$ =170 x 170 x 170 \\ \hline
570 \caption{Test conditions: various grid configurations with the input matix size N$_{x}$=150 or N$_{x}$=170 \RC{N2 n'est pas défini..}\RC{Nx est défini, Ny? Nz?}
571 \AG{La lettre 'x' n'est pas le symbole de la multiplication. Utiliser \texttt{\textbackslash times}. Idem dans le texte, les figures, etc.}}
580 In this section, we analyze the performance of algorithms running on various
581 grid configurations (2x16, 4x8, 4x16 and 8x8). First, the results in Figure~\ref{fig:01}
582 show for all grid configurations the non-variation of the number of iterations of
583 classical GMRES for a given input matrix size; it is not the case for the
584 multisplitting method.
586 \RC{CE attention tu n'as pas mis de label dans tes figures, donc c'est le bordel, j'en mets mais vérifie...}
587 \RC{Les légendes ne sont pas explicites...}
592 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_nx_150_and_nx_170.pdf}
594 \caption{Various grid configurations with the input matrix size N$_{x}$=150 and N$_{x}$=170\RC{idem}
595 \AG{Utiliser le point comme séparateur décimal et non la virgule. Idem dans les autres figures.}}
600 The execution times between the two algorithms is significant with different
601 grid architectures, even with the same number of processors (for example, 2x16
602 and 4x8). We can observ the low sensitivity of the Krylov multisplitting method
603 (compared with the classical GMRES) when scaling up the number of the processors
604 in the grid: in average, the GMRES (resp. Multisplitting) algorithm performs
605 $40\%$ better (resp. $48\%$) when running from 2x16=32 to 8x8=64 processors. \RC{pas très clair, c'est pas précis de dire qu'un algo perform mieux qu'un autre, selon quel critère?}
607 \subsubsection{Running on two different inter-clusters network speeds \\}
611 \begin{tabular}{r c }
613 Grid Architecture & 2x16, 4x8\\ %\hline
614 Network & N1 : bw=10Gbs-lat=8.10$^{-6}$ \\ %\hline
615 - & N2 : bw=1Gbs-lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\
616 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ x N$_{y}$ x N$_{z}$ =150 x 150 x 150\\ \hline
618 \caption{Test conditions: grid 2x16 and 4x8 with networks N1 vs N2}
623 These experiments compare the behavior of the algorithms running first on a
624 speed inter-cluster network (N1) and also on a less performant network (N2). \RC{Il faut définir cela avant...}
625 Figure~\ref{fig:02} shows that end users will reduce the execution time
626 for both algorithms when using a grid architecture like 4x16 or 8x8: the reduction is about $2$. The results depict also that when
627 the network speed drops down (variation of 12.5\%), the difference between the two Multisplitting algorithms execution times can reach more than 25\%.
631 %\begin{wrapfigure}{l}{100mm}
634 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_n1_x_n2.pdf}
635 \caption{Grid 2x16 and 4x8 with networks N1 vs N2
636 \AG{\np{8E-6}, \np{5E-6} au lieu de 8E-6, 5E-6}}
642 \subsubsection{Network latency impacts on performance}
646 \begin{tabular}{r c }
648 Grid Architecture & 2x16\\ %\hline
649 Network & N1 : bw=1Gbs \\ %\hline
650 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ x N$_{y}$ x N$_{z}$ =150 x 150 x 150\\ \hline
652 \caption{Test conditions: network latency impacts}
660 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_latency_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
661 \caption{Network latency impacts on execution time
667 According to the results of Figure~\ref{fig:03}, a degradation of the network
668 latency from $8.10^{-6}$ to $6.10^{-5}$ implies an absolute time increase of
669 more than $75\%$ (resp. $82\%$) of the execution for the classical GMRES
670 (resp. Krylov multisplitting) algorithm. In addition, it appears that the
671 Krylov multisplitting method tolerates more the network latency variation with a
672 less rate increase of the execution time.\RC{Les 2 précédentes phrases me
673 semblent en contradiction....} Consequently, in the worst case ($lat=6.10^{-5
674 }$), the execution time for GMRES is almost the double than the time of the
675 Krylov multisplitting, even though, the performance was on the same order of
676 magnitude with a latency of $8.10^{-6}$.
678 \subsubsection{Network bandwidth impacts on performance}
682 \begin{tabular}{r c }
684 Grid Architecture & 2x16\\ %\hline
685 Network & N1 : bw=1Gbs - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
686 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ x N$_{y}$ x N$_{z}$ =150 x 150 x 150\\ \hline \\
688 \caption{Test conditions: Network bandwidth impacts\RC{Qu'est ce qui varie ici? Il n'y a pas de variation dans le tableau}}
695 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_bandwith_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
696 \caption{Network bandwith impacts on execution time
697 \AG{``Execution time'' avec un 't' minuscule}. Idem autres figures.}
701 The results of increasing the network bandwidth show the improvement of the
702 performance for both algorithms by reducing the execution time (see
703 Figure~\ref{fig:04}). However, in this case, the Krylov multisplitting method
704 presents a better performance in the considered bandwidth interval with a gain
705 of $40\%$ which is only around $24\%$ for the classical GMRES.
707 \subsubsection{Input matrix size impacts on performance}
711 \begin{tabular}{r c }
713 Grid Architecture & 4x8\\ %\hline
714 Network & N2 : bw=1Gbs - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\
715 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ = From 40 to 200\\ \hline
717 \caption{Test conditions: Input matrix size impacts}
724 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{pb_size_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
725 \caption{Problem size impacts on execution time}
729 In these experiments, the input matrix size has been set from $N_{x} = N_{y}
730 = N_{z} = 40$ to $200$ side elements that is from $40^{3} = 64.000$ to $200^{3}
731 = 8,000,000$ points. Obviously, as shown in Figure~\ref{fig:05}, the execution
732 time for both algorithms increases when the input matrix size also increases.
733 But the interesting results are:
735 \item the drastic increase ($10$ times) of the number of iterations needed to
736 reach the convergence for the classical GMRES algorithm when the matrix size
737 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}
738 \item the classical GMRES execution time is almost the double for $N_{x}=140$
739 compared with the Krylov multisplitting method.
742 These findings may help a lot end users to setup the best and the optimal
743 targeted environment for the application deployment when focusing on the problem
744 size scale up. It should be noticed that the same test has been done with the
745 grid 2x16 leading to the same conclusion.
747 \subsubsection{CPU Power impacts on performance}
751 \begin{tabular}{r c }
753 Grid architecture & 2x16\\ %\hline
754 Network & N2 : bw=1Gbs - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
755 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ = 150 x 150 x 150\\ \hline
757 \caption{Test conditions: CPU Power impacts}
763 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cpu_power_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
764 \caption{CPU Power impacts on execution time}
768 Using the Simgrid simulator flexibility, we have tried to determine the impact
769 on the algorithms performance in varying the CPU power of the clusters nodes
770 from $1$ to $19$ GFlops. The outputs depicted in Figure~\ref{fig:06} confirm the
771 performance gain, around $95\%$ for both of the two methods, after adding more
774 %\DL{il faut une conclusion sur ces tests : ils confirment les résultats déjà
775 %obtenus en grandeur réelle. Donc c'est une aide précieuse pour les dev. Pas
776 %besoin de déployer sur une archi réelle}
778 To conclude these series of experiments, with SimGrid we have been able to make
779 many simulations with many parameters variations. Doing all these experiments
780 with a real platform is most of the time not possible. Moreover the behavior of
781 both GMRES and Krylov multisplitting methods is in accordance with larger real
782 executions on large scale supercomputer~\cite{couturier15}.
785 \subsection{Comparing GMRES in native synchronous mode and the multisplitting algorithm in asynchronous mode}
787 The previous paragraphs put in evidence the interests to simulate the behavior
788 of the application before any deployment in a real environment. In this
789 section, following the same previous methodology, our goal is to compare the
790 efficiency of the multisplitting method in \textit{ asynchronous mode} compared with the
791 classical GMRES in \textit{synchronous mode}.
793 The interest of using an asynchronous algorithm is that there is no more
794 synchronization. With geographically distant clusters, this may be essential.
795 In this case, each processor can compute its iteration freely without any
796 synchronization with the other processors. Thus, the asynchronous may
797 theoretically reduce the overall execution time and can improve the algorithm
800 \RC{la phrase suivante est bizarre, je ne comprends pas pourquoi elle vient ici}
801 In this section, Simgrid simulator tool has been successfully used to show
802 the efficiency of the multisplitting in asynchronous mode and to find the best
803 combination of the grid resources (CPU, Network, input matrix size, \ldots ) to
804 get the highest \textit{"relative gain"} (exec\_time$_{GMRES}$ /
805 exec\_time$_{multisplitting}$) in comparison with the classical GMRES time.
808 The test conditions are summarized in the table~\ref{tab:07}: \\
812 \begin{tabular}{r c }
814 Grid Architecture & 2x50 totaling 100 processors\\ %\hline
815 Processors Power & 1 GFlops to 1.5 GFlops\\
816 Intra-Network & bw=1.25 Gbits - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
817 Inter-Network & bw=5 Mbits - lat=2.10$^{-2}$\\
818 Input matrix size & N$_{x}$ = From 62 to 150\\ %\hline
819 Residual error precision & 10$^{-5}$ to 10$^{-9}$\\ \hline \\
821 \caption{Test conditions: GMRES in synchronous mode vs Krylov Multisplitting in asynchronous mode}
825 Again, comprehensive and extensive tests have been conducted with different
826 parameters as the CPU power, the network parameters (bandwidth and latency)
827 and with different problem size. The relative gains greater than $1$ between the
828 two algorithms have been captured after each step of the test. In
829 Figure~\ref{fig:07} are reported the best grid configurations allowing
830 the multisplitting method to be more than $2.5$ times faster than the
831 classical GMRES. These experiments also show the relative tolerance of the
832 multisplitting algorithm when using a low speed network as usually observed with
833 geographically distant clusters through the internet.
835 % use the same column width for the following three tables
836 \newlength{\mytablew}\settowidth{\mytablew}{\footnotesize\np{E-11}}
837 \newenvironment{mytable}[1]{% #1: number of columns for data
838 \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.3}%
839 \begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}r%
840 |*{#1}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{\mytablew}|}}}{%
847 % \caption{Relative gain of the multisplitting algorithm compared with the classical GMRES}
852 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 \\
855 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 \\
858 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 \\
861 & 62 & 62 & 62 & 100 & 100 & 110 & 120 & 130 & 140 & 150 \\
864 & \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}\\
867 & 2.52 & 2.55 & 2.52 & 2.57 & 2.54 & 2.53 & 2.51 & 2.58 & 2.55 & 2.54 \\
871 \caption{Relative gain of the multisplitting algorithm compared with the classical GMRES
872 \AG{C'est un tableau, pas une figure}}
879 In this paper we have presented the simulation of the execution of three
880 different parallel solvers on some multi-core architectures. We have show that
881 the SimGrid toolkit is an interesting simulation tool that has allowed us to
882 determine which method to choose given a specified multi-core architecture.
883 Moreover the simulated results are in accordance (i.e. with the same order of
884 magnitude) with the works presented in~\cite{couturier15}. Simulated results
885 also confirm the efficiency of the asynchronous multisplitting
886 algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES especially in case of
887 geographically distant clusters.
889 These results are important since it is very time consuming to find optimal
890 configuration and deployment requirements for a given application on a given
891 multi-core architecture. Finding good resource allocations policies under
892 varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very challenging and labor
893 intensive. This problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous
894 scheme where a small parameter variation of the execution platform and of the
895 application data can lead to very different numbers of iterations to reach the
896 converge and so to very different execution times.
903 %\section*{Acknowledgment}
905 This work is partially funded by the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
907 \bibliographystyle{wileyj}
908 \bibliography{biblio}
917 %%% ispell-local-dictionary: "american"