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58 \newcommand{\TOLG}{\mathit{tol_{gmres}}}
59 \newcommand{\MIG}{\mathit{maxit_{gmres}}}
60 \newcommand{\TOLM}{\mathit{tol_{multi}}}
61 \newcommand{\MIM}{\mathit{maxit_{multi}}}
62 \newcommand{\TOLC}{\mathit{tol_{cgls}}}
63 \newcommand{\MIC}{\mathit{maxit_{cgls}}}
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76 \title{Grid-enabled simulation of large-scale linear iterative solvers}
77 %\itshape{\journalnamelc}\footnotemark[2]}
79 \author{Charles Emile Ramamonjisoa\affil{1},
80 David Laiymani\affil{1},
81 Arnaud Giersch\affil{1},
82 Lilia Ziane Khodja\affil{2} and
83 Raphaël Couturier\affil{1}
88 Femto-ST Institute, DISC Department,
89 University of Franche-Comté,
91 Email:~\email{{charles.ramamonjisoa,david.laiymani,arnaud.giersch,raphael.couturier}@univ-fcomte.fr}\break
93 Department of Aerospace \& Mechanical Engineering,
94 Non Linear Computational Mechanics,
95 University of Liege, Liege, Belgium.
96 Email:~\email{l.zianekhodja@ulg.ac.be}
99 \begin{abstract} %% The behavior of multi-core applications is always a challenge
100 %% to predict, especially with a new architecture for which no experiment has been
101 %% performed. With some applications, it is difficult, if not impossible, to build
102 %% accurate performance models. That is why another solution is to use a simulation
103 %% tool which allows us to change many parameters of the architecture (network
104 %% bandwidth, latency, number of processors) and to simulate the execution of such
105 %% applications. The main contribution of this paper is to show that the use of a
106 %% simulation tool (here we have decided to use the SimGrid toolkit) can really
107 %% help developers to better tune their applications for a given multi-core
110 %% 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.
111 %% For each algorithm we have simulated
112 %% different architecture parameters to evaluate their influence on the overall
114 %% 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.
116 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.
118 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.
122 %\keywords{Algorithm; distributed; iterative; asynchronous; simulation; simgrid;
124 \keywords{ Performance evaluation, Simulation, SimGrid, Synchronous and asynchronous iterations, Multisplitting algorithms}
128 \section{Introduction} The use of multi-core architectures to solve large
129 scientific problems seems to become imperative in many situations.
130 Whatever the scale of these architectures (distributed clusters, computational
131 grids, embedded multi-core,~\ldots) they are generally well adapted to execute
132 complex parallel applications operating on a large amount of data.
133 Unfortunately, users (industrials or scientists), who need such computational
134 resources, may not have an easy access to such efficient architectures. The cost
135 of using the platform and/or the cost of testing and deploying an application
136 are often very important. So, in this context it is difficult to optimize a
137 given application for a given architecture. In this way and in order to reduce
138 the access cost to these computing resources it seems very interesting to use a
139 simulation environment. The advantages are numerous: development life cycle,
140 code debugging, ability to obtain results quickly\dots{} In counterpart, the simulation results need to be consistent with the real ones.
142 In this paper we focus on a class of highly efficient parallel algorithms called
143 \emph{iterative algorithms}. The parallel scheme of iterative methods is quite
144 simple. It generally involves the division of the problem into several
145 \emph{blocks} that will be solved in parallel on multiple processing
146 units. Each processing unit has to compute an iteration to send/receive some
147 data dependencies to/from its neighbors and to iterate this process until the
148 convergence of the method. Several well-known studies demonstrate the
149 convergence of these algorithms~\cite{BT89,bahi07}. In this processing mode a
150 task cannot begin a new iteration while it has not received data dependencies
151 from its neighbors. We say that the iteration computation follows a
152 \textit{synchronous} scheme. In the asynchronous scheme a task can compute a new
153 iteration without having to wait for the data dependencies coming from its
154 neighbors. Both communications and computations are \textit{asynchronous}
155 inducing that there is no more idle time, due to synchronizations, between two
156 iterations~\cite{bcvc06:ij}. This model presents some advantages and drawbacks
157 that we detail in Section~\ref{sec:asynchro} but even if the number of
158 iterations required to converge is generally greater than for the synchronous
159 case, it appears that the asynchronous iterative scheme can significantly
160 reduce overall execution times by suppressing idle times due to
161 synchronizations~(see~\cite{bahi07} for more details).
163 Nevertheless, in both cases (synchronous or asynchronous) it is very time
164 consuming to find optimal configuration and deployment requirements for a given
165 application on a given multi-core architecture. Finding good resource
166 allocations policies under varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very
167 challenging and labor intensive~\cite{Calheiros:2011:CTM:1951445.1951450}. This
168 problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous scheme where a small
169 parameter variation of the execution platform and of the application data can
170 lead to very different numbers of iterations to reach the convergence and so to
171 very different execution times. In this challenging context we think that the
172 use of a simulation tool can greatly leverage the possibility of testing various
175 The {\bf main contribution of this paper} is to show that the use of a
176 simulation tool (i.e. the SimGrid toolkit~\cite{SimGrid}) in the context of real
177 parallel applications (i.e. large linear system solvers) can help developers to
178 better tune their applications for a given multi-core architecture. To show the
179 validity of this approach we first compare the simulated execution of the Krylov
180 multisplitting algorithm with the GMRES (Generalized Minimal RESidual)
181 solver~\cite{saad86} in synchronous mode. The simulation results allow us to
182 determine which method to choose for a given multi-core architecture.
183 Moreover the obtained results on different simulated multi-core architectures
184 confirm the real results previously obtained on non simulated architectures.
185 More precisely the simulated results are in accordance (i.e. with the same order
186 of magnitude) with the works presented in~\cite{couturier15}, which show that
187 the synchronous Krylov multisplitting method is more efficient than GMRES for large
188 scale clusters. Simulated results also confirm the efficiency of the
189 asynchronous multisplitting algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES
190 especially in case of geographically distant clusters.
192 In this way and with a simple computing architecture (a laptop) SimGrid allows us
193 to run a test campaign of a real parallel iterative applications on
194 different simulated multi-core architectures. To our knowledge, there is no
195 related work on the large-scale multi-core simulation of a real synchronous and
196 asynchronous iterative application.
198 This paper is organized as follows. Section~\ref{sec:asynchro} presents the
199 iteration model we use and more particularly the asynchronous scheme. In
200 Section~\ref{sec:simgrid} the SimGrid simulation toolkit is presented.
201 Section~\ref{sec:04} details the different solvers that we use. Finally our
202 experimental results are presented in Section~\ref{sec:expe} followed by some
203 concluding remarks and perspectives.
206 \section{The asynchronous iteration model and the motivations of our work}
209 Asynchronous iterative methods have been studied for many years theoretically and
210 practically. Many methods have been considered and convergence results have been
211 proved. These methods can be used to solve, in parallel, fixed point problems
212 (i.e. problems for which the solution is $x^\star =f(x^\star)$. In practice,
213 asynchronous iteration methods can be used to solve, for example, linear and
214 non-linear systems of equations or optimization problems, interested readers are
215 invited to read~\cite{BT89,bahi07}.
217 Before using an asynchronous iterative method, the convergence must be
218 studied. Otherwise, the application is not ensure to reach the convergence. An
219 algorithm that supports both the synchronous or the asynchronous iteration model
220 requires very few modifications to be able to be executed in both variants. In
221 practice, only the communications and convergence detection are different. In
222 the synchronous mode, iterations are synchronized whereas in the asynchronous
223 one, they are not. It should be noticed that non-blocking communications can be
224 used in both modes. Concerning the convergence detection, synchronous variants
225 can use a global convergence procedure which acts as a global synchronization
226 point. In the asynchronous model, the convergence detection is more tricky as
227 it must not synchronize all the processors. Interested readers can
228 consult~\cite{myBCCV05c,bahi07,ccl09:ij}.
230 The number of iterations required to reach the convergence is generally greater
231 for the asynchronous scheme (this number depends on the delay of the
232 messages). Note that, it is not the case in the synchronous mode where the
233 number of iterations is the same than in the sequential mode. In this way, the
234 set of the parameters of the platform (number of nodes, power of nodes,
235 inter and intra clusters bandwidth and latency,~\ldots) and of the
236 application can drastically change the number of iterations required to get the
237 convergence. It follows that asynchronous iterative algorithms are difficult to
238 optimize since the financial and deployment costs on large scale multi-core
239 architectures are often very important. So, prior to deployment and tests it
240 seems very promising to be able to simulate the behavior of asynchronous
241 iterative algorithms. The problematic is then to show that the results produced
242 by simulation are in accordance with reality i.e. of the same order of
243 magnitude. To our knowledge, there is no study on this problematic.
247 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.
249 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
250 % SimGrid~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid,casanova+giersch+legrand+al.2014.versatile}
251 % is a simulation framework to study the behavior of large-scale distributed
252 % systems. As its name suggests, it emanates from the grid computing community,
253 % but is nowadays used to study grids, clouds, HPC or peer-to-peer systems. The
254 % early versions of SimGrid date back from 1999, but it is still actively
255 % developed and distributed as an open source software. Today, it is one of the
256 % major generic tools in the field of simulation for large-scale distributed
259 SimGrid provides several programming interfaces: MSG to simulate Concurrent
260 Sequential Processes, SimDAG to simulate DAGs of (parallel) tasks, and SMPI to
261 run real applications written in MPI~\cite{MPI}. Apart from the native C
262 interface, SimGrid provides bindings for the C++, Java, Lua and Ruby programming
263 languages. SMPI is the interface that has been used for the work described in
264 this paper. The SMPI interface implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0
265 standard~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}, and supports
266 applications written in C or Fortran, with little or no modifications (cf Section IV - paragraph B).
268 Within SimGrid, the execution of a distributed application is simulated by a
269 single process. The application code is really executed, but some operations,
270 like communications, are intercepted, and their running time is computed
271 according to the characteristics of the simulated execution platform. The
272 description of this target platform is given as an input for the execution, by
273 means of an XML file. It describes the properties of the platform, such as
274 the computing nodes with their computing power, the interconnection links with
275 their bandwidth and latency, and the routing strategy. The scheduling of the
276 simulated processes, as well as the simulated running time of the application
277 are computed according to these properties.
279 To compute the durations of the operations in the simulated world, and to take
280 into account resource sharing (e.g. bandwidth sharing between competing
281 communications), SimGrid uses a fluid model. This allows users to run relatively fast
282 simulations, while still keeping accurate
283 results~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward,
284 velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. Moreover, depending on the
285 simulated application, SimGrid/SMPI allows to skip long lasting computations and
286 to only take their duration into account. When the real computations cannot be
287 skipped, but the results are unimportant for the simulation results, it is
288 also possible to share dynamically allocated data structures between
289 several simulated processes, and thus to reduce the whole memory consumption.
290 These two techniques can help to run simulations on a very large scale.
292 The validity of simulations with SimGrid has been asserted by several studies.
293 See, for example, \cite{velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity} and articles
294 referenced therein for the validity of the network models. Comparisons between
295 real execution of MPI applications on the one hand, and their simulation with
296 SMPI on the other hand, are presented in~\cite{guermouche+renard.2010.first,
297 clauss+stillwell+genaud+al.2011.single,
298 bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}. All these works conclude that
299 SimGrid is able to simulate pretty accurately the real behavior of the
301 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
303 \section{Two-stage multisplitting methods}
305 \subsection{Synchronous and asynchronous two-stage methods for sparse linear systems}
307 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 $\mathbb{R}$:
312 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:
314 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
317 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:
319 A_{\ell\ell} x_\ell = c_\ell,\mbox{~for~}\ell=1,\ldots,L,
322 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}.
325 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
326 %\caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
327 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
328 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
329 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
330 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
331 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
332 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
333 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$\label{solve}
334 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters\label{send}
335 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters\label{recv}
338 \caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
343 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:
345 k\geq\MIM\mbox{~or~}\|x_\ell^{k+1}-x_\ell^k\|_{\infty }\leq\TOLM,
348 where $\MIM$ is the maximum number of outer iterations and $\TOLM$ is the tolerance threshold for the two-stage algorithm.
350 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:
352 S=[x^1,x^2,\ldots,x^s],~s\ll n.
355 At each $s$ outer iterations, the algorithm computes a new approximation $\tilde{x}=S\alpha$ which minimizes the residual:
357 \min_{\alpha\in\mathbb{R}^s}{\|b-AS\alpha\|_2}.
360 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}).
363 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
364 %\caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
365 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
366 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
367 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
368 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
369 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
370 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
371 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$
372 \State $S_{\ell,k\mod s}=x_\ell^k$
374 \State $\alpha = Solve_{cgls}(AS,b,\MIC,\TOLC)$\label{cgls}
375 \State $\tilde{x_\ell}=S_\ell\alpha$
376 \State Send $\tilde{x_\ell}$ to neighboring clusters
378 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters
380 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters
383 \caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
388 \subsection{Simulation of the two-stage methods using SimGrid toolkit}
391 One of our objectives when simulating the application in SimGrid is, as in real
392 life, to get accurate results (solutions of the problem) but also to ensure the
393 test reproducibility under the same conditions. According to our experience,
394 very few modifications are required to adapt a MPI program for the SimGrid
395 simulator using SMPI (Simulator MPI). The first modification is to include SMPI
396 libraries and related header files (\verb+smpi.h+). The second modification is to
397 suppress all global variables by replacing them with local variables or using a
398 SimGrid selector called "runtime automatic switching"
399 (smpi/privatize\_global\_variables). Indeed, global variables can generate side
400 effects on runtime between the threads running in the same process and generated by
401 SimGrid to simulate the grid environment.
403 \paragraph{Parameters of the simulation in SimGrid}
404 \ \\ \noindent Before running a SimGrid benchmark, many parameters for the
405 computation platform must be defined. For our experiments, we consider platforms
406 in which several clusters are geographically distant, so there are intra and
407 inter-cluster communications. In the following, these parameters are described:
410 \item hostfile: hosts description file,
411 \item platform: file describing the platform architecture: clusters (CPU power,
412 \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network (bandwidth $bw$,
413 latency $lat$, \dots{}),
414 \item archi : grid computational description (number of clusters, number of
415 nodes/processors in each cluster).
418 In addition, the following arguments are given to the programs at runtime:
421 \item maximum number of inner iterations $\MIG$ and outer iterations $\MIM$,
422 \item inner precision $\TOLG$ and outer precision $\TOLM$,
423 \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}),
424 \item matrix diagonal value is fixed to $6.0$ for synchronous experiments and $6.2$ for asynchronous ones,
425 \item matrix off-diagonal value is fixed to $-1.0$,
426 \item number of vectors in matrix $S$ (i.e. value of $s$),
427 \item maximum number of iterations $\MIC$ and precision $\TOLC$ for CGLS method,
428 \item maximum number of iterations and precision for the classical GMRES method,
429 \item maximum number of restarts for the Arnorldi process in GMRES method,
430 \item execution mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
433 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.
435 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
436 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
438 \section{Experimental results}
441 In this section, experiments for both multisplitting algorithms are reported. First the 3D Poisson problem used in our experiments is described.
443 \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$50. The first number
489 represents the number of clusters in the grid and the second number represents
490 the number of hosts (processors/cores) in each cluster. \\
492 \textbf{Step 5}: Conduct an extensive and comprehensive testings
493 within these configurations by varying the key parameters, especially
494 the CPU power capacity, the network parameters and also the size of the
497 \textbf{Step 6} : Collect and analyze the output results.
499 \subsection{Factors impacting distributed applications performance in a grid environment}
501 When running a distributed application in a computational grid, many factors may
502 have a strong impact on the performance. First of all, the architecture of the
503 grid itself can obviously influence the performance results of the program. The
504 performance gain might be important theoretically when the number of clusters
505 and/or the number of nodes (processors/cores) in each individual cluster
508 Another important factor impacting the overall performance of the application
509 is the network configuration. Two main network parameters can modify drastically
510 the program output results:
512 \item the network bandwidth ($bw$ in bits/s) also known as "the data-carrying
513 capacity" of the network is defined as the maximum of data that can transit
514 from one point to another in a unit of time.
515 \item the network latency ($lat$ in microseconds) defined as the delay from the
516 start time to send a simple data from a source to a destination.
518 Upon the network characteristics, another impacting factor is the volume of data exchanged between the nodes in the cluster
519 and between distant clusters. This parameter is application dependent.
521 In a grid environment, it is common to distinguish, on the one hand, the
522 "intra-network" which refers to the links between nodes within a cluster and
523 on the other hand, the "inter-network" which is the backbone link between
524 clusters. In practice, these two networks have different speeds.
525 The intra-network generally works like a high speed local network with a
526 high bandwidth and very low latency. In opposite, the inter-network connects
527 clusters sometime via heterogeneous networks components through internet with
528 a lower speed. The network between distant clusters might be a bottleneck
529 for the global performance of the application.
532 \subsection{Comparison between GMRES and two-stage multisplitting algorithms in synchronous mode}
533 In the scope of this paper, our first objective is to analyze when the synchronous Krylov two-stage method has better performance than the classical GMRES method. With a synchronous iterative method, better performance means a smaller number of iterations and execution time before reaching the convergence.
535 Table~\ref{tab:01} summarizes the parameters used in the different simulations: the grid architectures, the network of inter-clusters backbone links and the matrix sizes of the 3D Poisson problem. However, for all simulations we fix the network parameters of the intra-clusters links: the bandwidth $bw$=10Gbs and the latency $lat$=8$\times$10$^{-6}$. In what follows, we will present the test conditions, the output results and our comments.
541 Grid architecture & 2$\times$16, 4$\times$8, 4$\times$16 and 8$\times$8\\
542 \multirow{2}{*}{Network inter-clusters} & $N1$: $bw$=10Gbs, $lat$=8$\times$10$^{-6}$ \\
543 & $N2$: $bw$=1Gbs, $lat$=5$\times$10$^{-5}$ \\
544 \multirow{2}{*}{Matrix size} & $Mat1$: N$_{x}\times$N$_{y}\times$N$_{z}$=150$\times$150$\times$150\\
545 & $Mat2$: N$_{x}\times$N$_{y}\times$N$_{z}$=170$\times$170$\times$170 \\ \hline
547 \caption{Parameters for the different simulations}
552 \subsubsection{Simulations for various grid architectures and scaling-up matrix sizes}
554 In this section, we analyze the simulations conducted on various grid
555 configurations and for different sizes of the 3D Poisson problem. The parameters
556 of the network between clusters is fixed to $N2$ (see
557 Table~\ref{tab:01}). Figure~\ref{fig:01} shows, for all grid configurations and a
558 given matrix size 170$^3$ elements, a non-variation in the number of iterations
559 for the classical GMRES algorithm, which is not the case of the Krylov two-stage
560 algorithm. In fact, with multisplitting algorithms, the number of splitting (in
561 our case, it is the number of clusters) influences on the convergence speed. The
562 higher the number of splitting is, the slower the convergence of the algorithm
563 is (see the output results obtained from configurations 2$\times$16 vs. 4$\times$8 and configurations 4$\times$16 vs. 8$\times$8).
565 The execution times between both algorithms is significant with different grid architectures. The synchronous Krylov two-stage algorithm presents better performances than the GMRES algorithm, even for a high number of clusters (about $32\%$ more efficient on a grid of 8$\times$8 than GMRES). In addition, we can observe a better sensitivity of the Krylov two-stage algorithm (compared to the GMRES one) when scaling up the number of the processors in the computational grid: the Krylov two-stage algorithm is about $48\%$ and the GMRES algorithm is about $40\%$ better on 64 processors (grid of 8$\times$8) than 32 processors (grid of 2$\times$16).
569 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_nx_150_and_nx_170.pdf}
571 \caption{Various grid configurations with the matrix sizes 150$^3$ and 170$^3$}
575 \subsubsection{Simulations for two different inter-clusters network speeds \\}
577 In this section, the experiments compare the behavior of the algorithms running on a
578 speeder inter-cluster network (N2) and also on a less performant network (N1) respectively defined in the test conditions Table~\ref{tab:02}.
579 %\RC{Il faut définir cela avant...}
580 Figure~\ref{fig:02} shows that end users will reduce the execution time
581 for both algorithms when using a grid architecture like 4 $\times$ 16 or 8 $\times$ 8: the reduction factor is around $2$. The results depict also that when
582 the network speed drops down (variation of 12.5\%), the difference between the two Multisplitting algorithms execution times can reach more than 25\%.
586 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_n1_x_n2.pdf}
587 \caption{Various grid configurations with networks $N1$ vs. $N2$}
612 \subsubsection{Network latency impacts on performance}
616 \begin{tabular}{r c }
618 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 16\\ %\hline
619 \multirow{2}{*}{Inter Network N1} & $bw$=1Gbs, \\ %\hline
620 & $lat$= From 8$\times$10$^{-6}$ to $6.10^{-5}$ second \\
621 Input matrix size & $N_{x} \times N_{y} \times N_{z} = 150 \times 150 \times 150$\\ \hline
623 \caption{Test conditions: network latency impacts}
627 \begin{figure} [htbp]
629 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_latency_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
630 \caption{Network latency impacts on execution time}
635 In Table~\ref{tab:03}, parameters for the influence of the network latency are
636 reported. According to the results of Figure~\ref{fig:03}, a degradation of the
637 network latency from $8.10^{-6}$ to $6.10^{-5}$ implies an absolute time
638 increase of more than $75\%$ (resp. $82\%$) of the execution for the classical
639 GMRES (resp. Krylov multisplitting) algorithm. The execution time factor
640 between the two algorithms varies from 2.2 to 1.5 times with a network latency
641 decreasing from $8.10^{-6}$ to $6.10^{-5}$ second.
644 \subsubsection{Network bandwidth impacts on performance}
648 \begin{tabular}{r c }
650 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 16\\ %\hline
651 \multirow{2}{*}{Inter Network N1} & $bw$=From 1Gbs to 10 Gbs \\ %\hline
652 & $lat$= 5.10$^{-5}$ second \\
653 Input matrix size & $N_{x} \times N_{y} \times N_{z} =150 \times 150 \times 150$\\ \hline \\
655 \caption{Test conditions: Network bandwidth impacts}
656 % \RC{Qu'est ce qui varie ici? Il n'y a pas de variation dans le tableau}
662 \begin{figure} [htbp]
664 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_bandwith_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
665 \caption{Network bandwith impacts on execution time}
666 %\AG{``Execution time'' avec un 't' minuscule}. Idem autres figures.}
671 The results of increasing the network bandwidth show the improvement of the
672 performance for both algorithms by reducing the execution time (see
673 Figure~\ref{fig:04}). However, in this case, the Krylov multisplitting method
674 presents a better performance in the considered bandwidth interval with a gain
675 of $40\%$ which is only around $24\%$ for the classical GMRES.
677 \subsubsection{Input matrix size impacts on performance}
681 \begin{tabular}{r c }
683 Grid Architecture & 4 $\times$ 8\\ %\hline
684 Inter Network & $bw$=1Gbs - $lat$=5.10$^{-5}$ \\
685 Input matrix size & $N_{x} \times N_{y} \times N_{z}$ = From 50$^{3}$ to 190$^{3}$\\ \hline
687 \caption{Test conditions: Input matrix size impacts}
692 \begin{figure} [htbp]
694 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{pb_size_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
695 \caption{Problem size impacts on execution time}
699 In these experiments, the input matrix size has been set from $50^3$ to
700 $190^3$. Obviously, as shown in Figure~\ref{fig:05}, the execution time for both
701 algorithms increases when the input matrix size also increases. For all problem
702 sizes, GMRES is always slower than the Krylov multisplitting. Moreover, for this
703 benchmark, it seems that the greater the problem size is, the bigger the ratio
704 between both algorithm execution times is. We can also observ that for some
705 problem sizes, the Krylov multisplitting convergence varies quite a
706 lot. Consequently the execution times in that cases also varies.
709 These findings may help a lot end users to setup the best and the optimal
710 targeted environment for the application deployment when focusing on the problem
711 size scale up. It should be noticed that the same test has been done with the
712 grid 4 $\times$ 8 leading to the same conclusion.
714 \subsubsection{CPU Power impacts on performance\\}
719 \begin{tabular}{r c }
721 Grid architecture & 2 $\times$ 16\\ %\hline
722 Inter Network & N2 : $bw$=1Gbs - $lat$=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
723 Input matrix size & $N_{x} = 150 \times 150 \times 150$\\
724 CPU Power & From 3 to 19 GFlops \\ \hline
726 \caption{Test conditions: CPU Power impacts}
732 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cpu_power_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
733 \caption{CPU Power impacts on execution time}
737 Using the Simgrid simulator flexibility, we have tried to determine the impact
738 on the algorithms performance in varying the CPU power of the clusters nodes
739 from $1$ to $19$ GFlops. The outputs depicted in Figure~\ref{fig:06} confirm the
740 performance gain, around $95\%$ for both of the two methods, after adding more
743 %\DL{il faut une conclusion sur ces tests : ils confirment les résultats déjà
744 %obtenus en grandeur réelle. Donc c'est une aide précieuse pour les dev. Pas
745 %besoin de déployer sur une archi réelle}
747 To conclude these series of experiments, with SimGrid we have been able to make
748 many simulations with many parameters variations. Doing all these experiments
749 with a real platform is most of the time not possible. Moreover the behavior of
750 both GMRES and Krylov multisplitting methods is in accordance with larger real
751 executions on large scale supercomputer~\cite{couturier15}.
754 \subsection{Comparing GMRES in native synchronous mode and the multisplitting algorithm in asynchronous mode}
756 The previous paragraphs put in evidence the interests to simulate the behavior
757 of the application before any deployment in a real environment. In this
758 section, following the same previous methodology, our goal is to compare the
759 efficiency of the multisplitting method in \textit{ asynchronous mode} compared with the
760 classical GMRES in \textit{synchronous mode}.
762 The interest of using an asynchronous algorithm is that there is no more
763 synchronization. With geographically distant clusters, this may be essential.
764 In this case, each processor can compute its iteration freely without any
765 synchronization with the other processors. Thus, the asynchronous may
766 theoretically reduce the overall execution time and can improve the algorithm
769 In this section, the Simgrid simulator is used to compare the behavior of the
770 multisplitting in asynchronous mode with GMRES in synchronous mode. Several
771 benchmarks have been performed with various combination of the grid resources
772 (CPU, Network, input matrix size, \ldots ). The test conditions are summarized
773 in Table~\ref{tab:07}. In order to compare the execution times, this table
774 reports the relative gain between both algorithms. It is defined by the ratio
775 between the execution time of GMRES and the execution time of the
776 multisplitting. The ration is greater than one because the asynchronous
777 multisplitting version is faster than GMRES.
783 \begin{tabular}{r c }
785 Grid Architecture & 2 $\times$ 50 totaling 100 processors\\ %\hline
786 Processors Power & 1 GFlops to 1.5 GFlops\\
787 Intra-Network & bw=1.25 Gbits - lat=5.10$^{-5}$ \\ %\hline
788 Inter-Network & bw=5 Mbits - lat=2.10$^{-2}$\\
789 Input matrix size & $N_{x}$ = From 62 to 150\\ %\hline
790 Residual error precision & 10$^{-5}$ to 10$^{-9}$\\ \hline \\
792 \caption{Test conditions: GMRES in synchronous mode vs Krylov Multisplitting in asynchronous mode}
796 Again, comprehensive and extensive tests have been conducted with different
797 parameters as the CPU power, the network parameters (bandwidth and latency)
798 and with different problem size. The relative gains greater than $1$ between the
799 two algorithms have been captured after each step of the test. In
800 Table~\ref{tab:08} are reported the best grid configurations allowing
801 the multisplitting method to be more than $2.5$ times faster than the
802 classical GMRES. These experiments also show the relative tolerance of the
803 multisplitting algorithm when using a low speed network as usually observed with
804 geographically distant clusters through the internet.
806 % use the same column width for the following three tables
807 \newlength{\mytablew}\settowidth{\mytablew}{\footnotesize\np{E-11}}
808 \newenvironment{mytable}[1]{% #1: number of columns for data
809 \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.3}%
810 \begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}r%
811 |*{#1}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{\mytablew}|}}}{%
818 % \caption{Relative gain of the multisplitting algorithm compared with the classical GMRES}
823 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 \\
826 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 \\
829 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 \\
832 & 62 & 62 & 62 & 100 & 100 & 110 & 120 & 130 & 140 & 150 \\
835 & \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}\\
838 & 2.52 & 2.55 & 2.52 & 2.57 & 2.54 & 2.53 & 2.51 & 2.58 & 2.55 & 2.54 \\
842 \caption{Relative gain of the multisplitting algorithm compared with the classical GMRES}
849 In this paper we have presented the simulation of the execution of three
850 different parallel solvers on some multi-core architectures. We have show that
851 the SimGrid toolkit is an interesting simulation tool that has allowed us to
852 determine which method to choose given a specified multi-core architecture.
853 Moreover the simulated results are in accordance (i.e. with the same order of
854 magnitude) with the works presented in~\cite{couturier15}. Simulated results
855 also confirm the efficiency of the asynchronous multisplitting
856 algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES especially in case of
857 geographically distant clusters.
859 These results are important since it is very time consuming to find optimal
860 configuration and deployment requirements for a given application on a given
861 multi-core architecture. Finding good resource allocations policies under
862 varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very challenging and labor
863 intensive. This problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous
864 scheme where a small parameter variation of the execution platform and of the
865 application data can lead to very different numbers of iterations to reach the
866 converge and so to very different execution times.
869 In future works, we plan to investigate how to simulate the behavior of really
870 large scale applications. For example, if we are interested to simulate the
871 execution of the solvers of this paper with thousand or even dozens of thousands
872 or core, it is not possible to do that with SimGrid. In fact, this tool will
873 make the real computation. So we plan to focus our research on that problematic.
877 %\section*{Acknowledgment}
879 This work is partially funded by the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
881 \bibliographystyle{wileyj}
882 \bibliography{biblio}
891 %%% ispell-local-dictionary: "american"