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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 Lilia Ziane Khodja\affil{2},
81 David Laiymani\affil{1},
82 Raphaël Couturier\affil{1} and
83 Arnaud Giersch\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}. 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 real physical 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 In the scope of this paper, we have chosen the SimGrid toolkit~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+giersch+legrand+al.2014.versatile} to simulate the behavior of parallel iterative linear solvers on different computational grid configurations. In opposite to most of the simulators which are stayed very oriented-application, the SimGrid framework is designed to study the behavior of many large-scale distributed computing platforms as Grids, Peer-to-Peer systems, Clouds or High Performance Computation systems. It is still actively developed by the scientific community and distributed as an open source software.
249 SimGrid provides four user interfaces which can be convenient for different distributed applications~\cite{casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid}. In this paper we are interested on the SMPI user interface (Simulator MPI) which implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0 standard and allows minor modifications of the initial code~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward} (see Section~\ref{sec:04.02}). SMPI enables the direct simulation of the execution, as in the real life, of an unmodified MPI distributed application, and gets accurate results with the detailed resources consumption.
251 SimGrid simulator uses at least three XML input files describing the computational grid resources: the number of clusters in the grid, the number of processors/cores in each cluster, the detailed description of the intra and inter networks and the list of the hosts in each cluster (see the details in Section~\ref{sec:expe}). SimGrid uses a fluid model to simulate the program execution. It allows several simulation modes which produce accurate results~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward,velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. For instance, the "in vivo" mode really executes the computation but "intercepts" the communications (the execution time is then evaluated according to the parameters of the simulated platform). It is also possible for SimGrid/SMPI to only keep the duration of large computations by skipping them. Moreover the application can be run "in vitro" mode by sharing some in-memory structures between the simulated processes and thus allowing the use of very large-scale data.
253 The choice of SimGrid/SMPI as a simulator tool in this study has been emphasized by the results obtained by several studies to validate, in the real environments, the behavior of different network models simulated in SimGrid~\cite{velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. Other studies underline the comparison between the real MPI application executions and the SimGrid/SMPI ones~\cite{guermouche+renard.2010.first,clauss+stillwell+genaud+al.2011.single,bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}. These works show the accuracy of SimGrid simulations compared to the executions on real physical architectures.
267 %% In the scope of this paper, the SimGrid toolkit~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid,casanova+giersch+legrand+al.2014.versatile},
268 %% an open source framework actively developed by its scientific community, has been chosen to simulate the behavior of iterative linear solvers in different computational grid configurations. SimGrid pretends to be non-specialized in opposite to some other simulators which stayed to be very specific oriented-application. One of the well-known SimGrid advantage is its SMPI (Simulated MPI) user interface. SMPI purpose is to execute by simulation in a similar way as in real life, an MPI distributed application and to get accurate results with the detailed resources
269 %% consumption.Several studies have demonstrated the accuracy of the simulation
270 %% compared with execution on real physical architectures. In addition of SMPI,
271 %% Simgrid provides other API which can be convienent for different distrbuted
272 %% applications: computational grid applications, High Performance Computing (HPC),
273 %% P2P but also clouds applications. In this paper we use the SMPI API. It
274 %% implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0 standard and allows minor
275 %% modifications of the initial code~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}
276 %% (see Section~\ref{sec:04.02}).
279 %% Provided as an input to the simulator, at least $3$ XML files describe the
280 %% computational grid resources: number of clusters in the grid, number of
281 %% processors/cores in each cluster, detailed description of the intra and inter
282 %% networks and the list of the hosts in each cluster (see the details in Section~\ref{sec:expe}). Simgrid uses a fluid model to simulate the program execution.
283 %% This gives several simulation modes which produce accurate
284 %% results~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward,
285 %% velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. For instance, the "in vivo" mode
286 %% really executes the computation but "intercepts" the communications (running
287 %% time is then evaluated according to the parameters of the simulated platform).
288 %% It is also possible for SimGrid/SMPI to only keep duration of large
289 %% computations by skipping them. Moreover the application can be run "in vitro"
290 %% by sharing some in-memory structures between the simulated processes and
291 %% thus allowing the use of very large data scale.
294 %% The choice of Simgrid/SMPI as a simulator tool in this study has been emphasized
295 %% by the results obtained by several studies to validate, in real environments,
296 %% the behavior of different network models simulated in
297 %% Simgrid~\cite{velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. Other studies underline
298 %% the comparison between real MPI executions and SimGrid/SMPI
299 %% ones\cite{guermouche+renard.2010.first, clauss+stillwell+genaud+al.2011.single,
300 %% bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}. These works show the accuracy of
301 %% SimGrid simulations.
308 % 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.
310 % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
311 % % SimGrid~\cite{SimGrid,casanova+legrand+quinson.2008.simgrid,casanova+giersch+legrand+al.2014.versatile}
312 % % is a simulation framework to study the behavior of large-scale distributed
313 % % systems. As its name suggests, it emanates from the grid computing community,
314 % % but is nowadays used to study grids, clouds, HPC or peer-to-peer systems. The
315 % % early versions of SimGrid date back from 1999, but it is still actively
316 % % developed and distributed as an open source software. Today, it is one of the
317 % % major generic tools in the field of simulation for large-scale distributed
320 % SimGrid provides several programming interfaces: MSG to simulate Concurrent
321 % Sequential Processes, SimDAG to simulate DAGs of (parallel) tasks, and SMPI to
322 % run real applications written in MPI~\cite{MPI}. Apart from the native C
323 % interface, SimGrid provides bindings for the C++, Java, Lua and Ruby programming
324 % languages. SMPI is the interface that has been used for the work described in
325 % this paper. The SMPI interface implements about \np[\%]{80} of the MPI 2.0
326 % standard~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}, and supports
327 % applications written in C or Fortran, with little or no modifications (cf Section IV - paragraph B).
329 % Within SimGrid, the execution of a distributed application is simulated by a
330 % single process. The application code is really executed, but some operations,
331 % like communications, are intercepted, and their running time is computed
332 % according to the characteristics of the simulated execution platform. The
333 % description of this target platform is given as an input for the execution, by
334 % means of an XML file. It describes the properties of the platform, such as
335 % the computing nodes with their computing power, the interconnection links with
336 % their bandwidth and latency, and the routing strategy. The scheduling of the
337 % simulated processes, as well as the simulated running time of the application
338 % are computed according to these properties.
340 % To compute the durations of the operations in the simulated world, and to take
341 % into account resource sharing (e.g. bandwidth sharing between competing
342 % communications), SimGrid uses a fluid model. This allows users to run relatively fast
343 % simulations, while still keeping accurate
344 % results~\cite{bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward,
345 % velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity}. Moreover, depending on the
346 % simulated application, SimGrid/SMPI allows to skip long lasting computations and
347 % to only take their duration into account. When the real computations cannot be
348 % skipped, but the results are unimportant for the simulation results, it is
349 % also possible to share dynamically allocated data structures between
350 % several simulated processes, and thus to reduce the whole memory consumption.
351 % These two techniques can help to run simulations on a very large scale.
353 % The validity of simulations with SimGrid has been asserted by several studies.
354 % See, for example, \cite{velho+schnorr+casanova+al.2013.validity} and articles
355 % referenced therein for the validity of the network models. Comparisons between
356 % real execution of MPI applications on the one hand, and their simulation with
357 % SMPI on the other hand, are presented in~\cite{guermouche+renard.2010.first,
358 % clauss+stillwell+genaud+al.2011.single,
359 % bedaride+degomme+genaud+al.2013.toward}. All these works conclude that
360 % SimGrid is able to simulate pretty accurately the real behavior of the
362 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
364 \section{Two-stage multisplitting methods}
366 \subsection{Synchronous and asynchronous two-stage methods for sparse linear systems}
368 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 $\mathbb{R}$:
373 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:
375 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
378 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:
380 A_{\ell\ell} x_\ell = c_\ell,\mbox{~for~}\ell=1,\ldots,L,
383 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}.
386 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
387 %\caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
388 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
389 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
390 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
391 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
392 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
393 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
394 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$\label{solve}
395 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters\label{send}
396 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters\label{recv}
399 \caption{Block Jacobi two-stage multisplitting method}
404 In this paper, we propose two algorithms of two-stage multisplitting methods. The first algorithm is based on the asynchronous scheme 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:
406 k\geq\MIM\mbox{~or~}\|x_\ell^{k+1}-x_\ell^k\|_{\infty }\leq\TOLM,
409 where $\MIM$ is the maximum number of outer iterations and $\TOLM$ is the tolerance threshold for the two-stage algorithm.
411 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:
413 S=[x^1,x^2,\ldots,x^s],~s\ll n.
416 At each $s$ outer iterations, the algorithm computes a new approximation $\tilde{x}=S\alpha$ which minimizes the residual:
418 \min_{\alpha\in\mathbb{R}^s}{\|b-AS\alpha\|_2}.
421 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}).
424 %\begin{algorithm}[t]
425 %\caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
426 \begin{algorithmic}[1]
427 \Input $A_\ell$ (sparse matrix), $b_\ell$ (right-hand side)
428 \Output $x_\ell$ (solution vector)\vspace{0.2cm}
429 \State Set the initial guess $x^0$
430 \For {$k=1,2,3,\ldots$ until convergence}
431 \State $c_\ell=b_\ell-\sum_{m\neq\ell}A_{\ell m}x_m^{k-1}$
432 \State $x^k_\ell=Solve_{gmres}(A_{\ell\ell},c_\ell,x^{k-1}_\ell,\MIG,\TOLG)$
433 \State $S_{\ell,k\mod s}=x_\ell^k$
435 \State $\alpha = Solve_{cgls}(AS,b,\MIC,\TOLC)$\label{cgls}
436 \State $\tilde{x_\ell}=S_\ell\alpha$
437 \State Send $\tilde{x_\ell}$ to neighboring clusters
439 \State Send $x_\ell^k$ to neighboring clusters
441 \State Receive $\{x_m^k\}_{m\neq\ell}$ from neighboring clusters
444 \caption{Krylov two-stage method using block Jacobi multisplitting}
449 \subsection{Simulation of the two-stage methods using SimGrid toolkit}
452 One of our objectives when simulating the application in SimGrid is, as in real
453 life, to get accurate results (solutions of the problem) but also to ensure the
454 test reproducibility under the same conditions. According to our experience,
455 very few modifications are required to adapt a MPI program for the SimGrid
456 simulator using SMPI (Simulator MPI). The first modification is to include SMPI
457 libraries and related header files (\verb+smpi.h+). The second modification is to
458 suppress all global variables by replacing them with local variables or using a
459 SimGrid selector called "runtime automatic switching"
460 (smpi/privatize\_global\_variables). Indeed, global variables can generate side
461 effects on runtime between the threads running in the same process and generated by
462 SimGrid to simulate the grid environment.
464 \paragraph{Parameters of the simulation in SimGrid}
465 \ \\ \noindent Before running a SimGrid benchmark, many parameters for the
466 computation platform must be defined. For our experiments, we consider platforms
467 in which several clusters are geographically distant, so there are intra and
468 inter-cluster communications. In the following, these parameters are described:
471 \item hostfile: hosts description file,
472 \item platform: file describing the platform architecture: clusters (CPU power,
473 \dots{}), intra cluster network description, inter cluster network (bandwidth $bw$,
474 latency $lat$, \dots{}),
475 \item archi : grid computational description (number of clusters, number of
476 nodes/processors in each cluster).
479 In addition, the following arguments are given to the programs at runtime:
482 \item maximum number of inner iterations $\MIG$ and outer iterations $\MIM$,
483 \item inner precision $\TOLG$ and outer precision $\TOLM$,
484 \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}),
485 \item matrix diagonal value is fixed to $6.0$ for synchronous experiments and $6.2$ for asynchronous ones,
486 \item matrix off-diagonal value is fixed to $-1.0$,
487 \item number of vectors in matrix $S$ (i.e. value of $s$),
488 \item maximum number of iterations $\MIC$ and precision $\TOLC$ for CGLS method,
489 \item maximum number of iterations and precision for the classical GMRES method,
490 \item maximum number of restarts for the Arnorldi process in GMRES method,
491 \item execution mode: synchronous or asynchronous.
494 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.
496 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
497 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
499 \section{Experimental results}
502 In this section, experiments for both multisplitting algorithms are reported. First the 3D Poisson problem used in our experiments is described.
504 \subsection{The 3D Poisson problem}
506 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:
508 \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
513 \phi(x,y,z)=0\mbox{~on the boundary~}\partial\Omega
515 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:
518 \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))
522 until convergence where $h$ is the grid spacing between two adjacent elements in the 3D computational grid.
524 In the parallel context, the 3D Poisson problem is partitioned into $L\times p$
525 sub-problems such that $L$ is the number of clusters and $p$ is the number of
526 processors in each cluster. We apply the three-dimensional partitioning instead
527 of the row-by-row one in order to reduce the size of the data shared at the
528 sub-problems boundaries. In this case, each processor is in charge of
529 parallelepipedic block of the problem and has at most six neighbors in the same
530 cluster or in distant clusters with which it shares data at boundaries.
532 \subsection{Study setup and simulation methodology}
534 First, to conduct our study, we propose the following methodology
535 which can be reused for any grid-enabled applications.\\
537 \textbf{Step 1}: Choose with the end users the class of algorithms or
538 the application to be tested. Numerical parallel iterative algorithms
539 have been chosen for the study in this paper. \\
541 \textbf{Step 2}: Collect the software materials needed for the experimentation.
542 In our case, we have two variants algorithms for the resolution of the
543 3D-Poisson problem: (1) using the classical GMRES; (2) and the multisplitting
544 method. In addition, the SimGrid simulator has been chosen to simulate the
545 behaviors of the distributed applications. SimGrid is running in a virtual
546 machine on a simple laptop. \\
548 \textbf{Step 3}: Fix the criteria which will be used for the future
549 results comparison and analysis. In the scope of this study, we retain
550 on the one hand the algorithm execution mode (synchronous and asynchronous)
551 and on the other hand the execution time and the number of iterations to reach the convergence. \\
553 \textbf{Step 4}: Set up the different grid testbed environments that will be
554 simulated in the simulator tool to run the program. The following architectures
555 have been configured in SimGrid : 2$\times$16, 4$\times$8, 4$\times$16, 8$\times$8 and 2$\times$50. The first number
556 represents the number of clusters in the grid and the second number represents
557 the number of hosts (processors/cores) in each cluster. \\
559 \textbf{Step 5}: Conduct an extensive and comprehensive testings
560 within these configurations by varying the key parameters, especially
561 the CPU power capacity, the network parameters and also the size of the
564 \textbf{Step 6} : Collect and analyze the output results.
566 \subsection{Factors impacting distributed applications performance in a grid environment}
568 When running a distributed application in a computational grid, many factors may
569 have a strong impact on the performance. First of all, the architecture of the
570 grid itself can obviously influence the performance results of the program. The
571 performance gain might be important theoretically when the number of clusters
572 and/or the number of nodes (processors/cores) in each individual cluster
575 Another important factor impacting the overall performance of the application
576 is the network configuration. Two main network parameters can modify drastically
577 the program output results:
579 \item the network bandwidth ($bw$ in bits/s) also known as "the data-carrying
580 capacity" of the network is defined as the maximum of data that can transit
581 from one point to another in a unit of time.
582 \item the network latency ($lat$ in microseconds) defined as the delay from the
583 start time to send a simple data from a source to a destination.
585 Upon the network characteristics, another impacting factor is the volume of data exchanged between the nodes in the cluster
586 and between distant clusters. This parameter is application dependent.
588 In a grid environment, it is common to distinguish, on one hand, the
589 \textit{intra-network} which refers to the links between nodes within a
590 cluster and on the other hand, the \textit{inter-network} which is the
591 backbone link between clusters. In practice, these two networks have
592 different speeds. The intra-network generally works like a high speed
593 local network with a high bandwidth and very low latency. In opposite, the
594 inter-network connects clusters sometime via heterogeneous networks components
595 through internet with a lower speed. The network between distant clusters
596 might be a bottleneck for the global performance of the application.
599 \subsection{Comparison between GMRES and two-stage multisplitting algorithms in
601 In the scope of this paper, our first objective is to analyze
602 when the synchronous Krylov two-stage method has better performance than the
603 classical GMRES method. With a synchronous iterative method, better performance
604 means a smaller number of iterations and execution time before reaching the
607 Table~\ref{tab:01} summarizes the parameters used in the different simulations:
608 the grid architectures (i.e. the number of clusters and the number of nodes per
609 cluster), the network of inter-clusters backbone links and the matrix sizes of
610 the 3D Poisson problem. However, for all simulations we fix the network
611 parameters of the intra-clusters links: the bandwidth $bw$=10Gbs and the latency
612 $lat=8\mu$s. In what follows, we will present the test conditions, the output
613 results and our comments.
619 Grid architecture & 2$\times$16, 4$\times$8, 4$\times$16 and 8$\times$8\\
620 \multirow{2}{*}{Network inter-clusters} & $N1$: $bw$=10Gbs, $lat=8\mu$s \\
621 & $N2$: $bw$=1Gbs, $lat=50\mu$s \\
622 \multirow{2}{*}{Matrix size} & $Mat1$: N$_{x}\times$N$_{y}\times$N$_{z}$=150$\times$150$\times$150\\
623 & $Mat2$: N$_{x}\times$N$_{y}\times$N$_{z}$=170$\times$170$\times$170 \\ \hline
625 \caption{Parameters for the different simulations}
630 \subsubsection{Simulations for various grid architectures and scaling-up matrix sizes\\}
632 In this section, we analyze the simulations conducted on various grid
633 configurations and for different sizes of the 3D Poisson problem. The parameters
634 of the network between clusters is fixed to $N2$ (see
635 Table~\ref{tab:01}). Figure~\ref{fig:01} shows, for all grid configurations and
636 a given matrix size of 170$^3$ elements, a non-variation in the number of
637 iterations for the classical GMRES algorithm, which is not the case of the
638 Krylov two-stage algorithm. In fact, with multisplitting algorithms, the number
639 of splitting (in our case, it is equal to the number of clusters) influences on the
640 convergence speed. The higher the number of splitting is, the slower the
641 convergence of the algorithm is (see the output results obtained from
642 configurations 2$\times$16 vs. 4$\times$8 and configurations 4$\times$16 vs.
645 The execution times between both algorithms is significant with different grid
646 architectures. The synchronous Krylov two-stage algorithm presents better
647 performances than the GMRES algorithm, even for a high number of clusters (about
648 $32\%$ more efficient on a grid of 8$\times$8 than GMRES). In addition, we can
649 observe a better sensitivity of the Krylov two-stage algorithm (compared to the
650 GMRES one) when scaling up the number of the processors in the computational
651 grid: the Krylov two-stage algorithm is about $48\%$ and the GMRES algorithm is
652 about $40\%$ better on $64$ processors (grid of 8$\times$8) than $32$ processors
653 (grid of 2$\times$16).
657 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_nx_150_and_nx_170.pdf}
659 \caption{Various grid configurations with two matrix sizes: $150^3$ and $170^3$}
663 \subsubsection{Simulations for two different inter-clusters network speeds\\}
664 In Figure~\ref{fig:02} we present the execution times of both algorithms to
665 solve a 3D Poisson problem of size $150^3$ on two different simulated network
666 $N1$ and $N2$ (see Table~\ref{tab:01}). As previously mentioned, we can see from
667 this figure that the Krylov two-stage algorithm is sensitive to the number of
668 clusters (i.e. it is better to have a small number of clusters). However, we can
669 notice an interesting behavior of the Krylov two-stage algorithm. It is less
670 sensitive to bad network bandwidth and latency for the inter-clusters links than
671 the GMRES algorithms. This means that the multisplitting methods are more
672 efficient for distributed systems with high latency networks.
676 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cluster_x_nodes_n1_x_n2.pdf}
677 \caption{Various grid configurations with two networks parameters: $N1$ vs. $N2$}
678 %\LZK{CE, remplacer les ``,'' des décimales par un ``.''}
683 \subsubsection{Network latency impacts on performances\\}
684 Figure~\ref{fig:03} shows the impact of the network latency on the performances of both algorithms. The simulation is conducted on a computational grid of 2 clusters of 16 processors each (i.e. configuration 2$\times$16) interconnected by a network of bandwidth $bw$=1Gbs to solve a 3D Poisson problem of size $150^3$. According to the results, a degradation of the network latency from $8\mu$s to $60\mu$s implies an absolute execution time increase for both algorithms, but not with the same rate of degradation. The GMRES algorithm is more sensitive to the latency degradation than the Krylov two-stage algorithm.
688 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_latency_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
689 \caption{Network latency impacts on performances}
693 \subsubsection{Network bandwidth impacts on performances\\}
695 Figure~\ref{fig:04} reports the results obtained for the simulation of a grid of
696 $2\times16$ processors interconnected by a network of latency $lat=50\mu$s to
697 solve a 3D Poisson problem of size $150^3$. The results of increasing the
698 network bandwidth from $1$Gbs to $10$Gbs show the performances improvement for
699 both algorithms by reducing the execution times. However, the Krylov two-stage
700 algorithm presents a better performance gain in the considered bandwidth
701 interval with a gain of $40\%$ compared to only about $24\%$ for the classical
706 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{network_bandwith_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
707 \caption{Network bandwith impacts on performances}
711 \subsubsection{Matrix size impacts on performances\\}
713 In these experiments, the matrix size of the 3D Poisson problem is varied from
714 $50^3$ to $190^3$ elements. The simulated computational grid is composed of $4$
715 clusters of $8$ processors each interconnected by the network $N2$ (see
716 Table~\ref{tab:01}). As shown in Figure~\ref{fig:05}, the execution
717 times for both algorithms increase with increased matrix sizes. For all problem
718 sizes, the GMRES algorithm is always slower than the Krylov two-stage algorithm.
719 Moreover, for this benchmark, it seems that the greater the problem size is, the
720 bigger the ratio between execution times of both algorithms is. We can also
721 observe that for some problem sizes, the convergence (and thus the execution
722 time) of the Krylov two-stage algorithm varies quite a lot.
723 %This is due to the 3D partitioning of the 3D matrix of the Poisson problem.
724 These findings may help a lot end users to setup the best and the optimal targeted environment for the application deployment when focusing on the problem size scale up.
728 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{pb_size_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
729 \caption{Problem size impacts on performances}
733 \subsubsection{CPU power impacts on performances\\}
735 Using the SimGrid simulator flexibility, we have tried to determine the impact
736 of the CPU power of the processors in the different clusters on performances of
737 both algorithms. We have varied the CPU power from $1$GFlops to $19$GFlops. The
738 simulation is conducted on a grid of $2\times16$ processors interconnected by
739 the network $N2$ (see Table~\ref{tab:01}) to solve a 3D Poisson problem of size
740 $150^3$. The results depicted in Figure~\ref{fig:06} confirm the performance
741 gain, about $95\%$ for both algorithms, after improving the CPU power of
746 \includegraphics[width=100mm]{cpu_power_impact_on_execution_time.pdf}
747 \caption{CPU Power impacts on performances}
752 To conclude these series of experiments, with SimGrid we have been able to make
753 many simulations with many parameters variations. Doing all these experiments
754 with a real platform is most of the time not possible or very costly. Moreover
755 the behavior of both GMRES and Krylov two-stage algorithms is in accordance
756 with larger real executions on large scale supercomputers~\cite{couturier15}.
759 \subsection{Comparison between synchronous GMRES and asynchronous two-stage multisplitting algorithms}
761 The previous paragraphs put in evidence the interests to simulate the behavior
762 of the application before any deployment in a real environment. In this
763 section, following the same previous methodology, our goal is to compare the
764 efficiency of the multisplitting method in \textit{ asynchronous mode} compared with the
765 classical GMRES in \textit{synchronous mode}.
767 The interest of using an asynchronous algorithm is that there is no more
768 synchronization. With geographically distant clusters, this may be essential.
769 In this case, each processor can compute its iterations freely without any
770 synchronization with the other processors. Thus, the asynchronous may
771 theoretically reduce the overall execution time and can improve the algorithm
774 In this section, the SimGrid simulator is used to compare the behavior of the
775 two-stage algorithm in asynchronous mode with GMRES in synchronous mode.
776 Several benchmarks have been performed with various combinations of the grid
777 resources (CPU, Network, matrix size, \ldots). The test conditions are
778 summarized in Table~\ref{tab:02}.
782 %\LZK{Quelle table repporte les gains relatifs?? Sûrement pas Table II !!}
783 %\RCE{Table III avec la nouvelle numerotation}
790 Grid architecture & 2$\times$50 totaling 100 processors\\
791 Processors Power & 1 GFlops to 1.5 GFlops \\
792 \multirow{2}{*}{Network inter-clusters} & $bw$: 5 Mbits to 50 Mbits\\
794 Matrix size & from $62^3$ to $150^3$\\
795 Residual error precision & $10^{-5}$ to $10^{-11}$\\ \hline \\
797 \caption{Test conditions: GMRES in synchronous mode vs. two-stage multisplitting in asynchronous mode}
802 % use the same column width for the following three tables
803 \newlength{\mytablew}\settowidth{\mytablew}{\footnotesize\np{E-11}}
804 \newenvironment{mytable}[1]{% #1: number of columns for data
805 \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.3}%
806 \begin{tabular}{|>{\bfseries}r%
807 |*{#1}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{\mytablew}|}}}{%
814 % \caption{Relative gain of the multisplitting algorithm compared with the classical GMRES}
819 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 5 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 & 50 \\
822 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 & 20 \\
825 & 1 & 1 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1.5 & 1 & 1.5 & 1.5 \\
828 & 62 & 62 & 62 & 100 & 100 & 110 & 120 & 130 & 140 & 150 \\
831 & \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}\\
834 & 2.52 & 2.55 & 2.52 & 2.57 & 2.54 & 2.53 & 2.51 & 2.58 & 2.55 & 2.54 \\
838 \caption{Relative gains of the asynchronous two-stage multisplitting algorithm compared to the classical synchronous GMRES algorithm}
843 Table~\ref{tab:03} reports the relative gains between both algorithms. It is
844 defined by the ratio between the execution time of GMRES and the execution time
845 of the multisplitting. The ratio is greater than one because the asynchronous
846 multisplitting version is faster than GMRES. In average, the two-stage
847 multisplitting algorithm to be more than $2.5$ times faster than the classical
848 GMRES. These experiments also show the relative tolerance of the multisplitting
849 algorithm when using a low speed network as usually observed with geographically
850 distant clusters through the internet.
854 In this paper we have presented the simulation of the execution of three
855 different parallel solvers on some multi-core architectures. We have shown that
856 the SimGrid toolkit is an interesting simulation tool that has allowed us to
857 determine which method to choose given a specified multi-core architecture.
858 Moreover the simulated results are in accordance (i.e. with the same order of
859 magnitude) with the works presented in~\cite{couturier15}. Simulated results
860 also confirm the efficiency of the asynchronous multisplitting
861 algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES especially in case of
862 geographically distant clusters.
864 These results are important since it is very time consuming to find optimal
865 configuration and deployment requirements for a given application on a given
866 multi-core architecture. Finding good resource allocations policies under
867 varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very challenging and labor
868 intensive. This problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous
869 scheme where a small parameter variation of the execution platform and of the
870 application data can lead to very different numbers of iterations to reach the
871 converge and so to very different execution times.
874 In future works, we plan to investigate how to simulate the behavior of really
875 large scale applications. For example, if we are interested to simulate the
876 execution of the solvers of this paper with thousand or even dozens of thousands
877 of cores, it is not possible to do that with SimGrid. In fact, this tool will
878 make the real computation. So we plan to focus our research on that problematic.
882 %\section*{Acknowledgment}
884 This work is partially funded by the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
886 \bibliographystyle{wileyj}
887 \bibliography{biblio}
896 %%% ispell-local-dictionary: "american"