+\section{Introduction} The use of multi-core architectures to solve large
+scientific problems seems to become imperative in many situations.
+Whatever the scale of these architectures (distributed clusters, computational
+grids, embedded multi-core,~\ldots) they are generally well adapted to execute
+complex parallel applications operating on a large amount of data.
+Unfortunately, users (industrials or scientists), who need such computational
+resources, may not have an easy access to such efficient architectures. The cost
+of using the platform and/or the cost of testing and deploying an application
+are often very important. So, in this context it is difficult to optimize a
+given application for a given architecture. In this way and in order to reduce
+the access cost to these computing resources it seems very interesting to use a
+simulation environment. The advantages are numerous: development life cycle,
+code debugging, ability to obtain results quickly~\ldots. In counterpart, the simulation results need to be consistent with the real ones.
+
+In this paper we focus on a class of highly efficient parallel algorithms called
+\emph{iterative algorithms}. The parallel scheme of iterative methods is quite
+simple. It generally involves the division of the problem into several
+\emph{blocks} that will be solved in parallel on multiple processing
+units. Each processing unit has to compute an iteration to send/receive some
+data dependencies to/from its neighbors and to iterate this process until the
+convergence of the method. Several well-known studies demonstrate the
+convergence of these algorithms~\cite{BT89,bahi07}. In this processing mode a
+task cannot begin a new iteration while it has not received data dependencies
+from its neighbors. We say that the iteration computation follows a
+\textit{synchronous} scheme. In the asynchronous scheme a task can compute a new
+iteration without having to wait for the data dependencies coming from its
+neighbors. Both communication and computations are \textit{asynchronous}
+inducing that there is no more idle time, due to synchronizations, between two
+iterations~\cite{bcvc06:ij}. This model presents some advantages and drawbacks
+that we detail in section~\ref{sec:asynchro} but even if the number of
+iterations required to converge is generally greater than for the synchronous
+case, it appears that the asynchronous iterative scheme can significantly
+reduce overall execution times by suppressing idle times due to
+synchronizations~(see~\cite{bahi07} for more details).
+
+Nevertheless, in both cases (synchronous or asynchronous) it is very time
+consuming to find optimal configuration and deployment requirements for a given
+application on a given multi-core architecture. Finding good resource
+allocations policies under varying CPU power, network speeds and loads is very
+challenging and labor intensive~\cite{Calheiros:2011:CTM:1951445.1951450}. This
+problematic is even more difficult for the asynchronous scheme where a small
+parameter variation of the execution platform can lead to very different numbers
+of iterations to reach the converge and so to very different execution times. In
+this challenging context we think that the use of a simulation tool can greatly
+leverage the possibility of testing various platform scenarios.
+
+The main contribution of this paper is to show that the use of a simulation tool
+(i.e. the SimGrid toolkit~\cite{SimGrid}) in the context of real parallel
+applications (i.e. large linear system solvers) can help developers to better
+tune their application for a given multi-core architecture. To show the validity
+of this approach we first compare the simulated execution of the multisplitting
+algorithm with the GMRES (Generalized Minimal Residual)
+solver~\cite{saad86} in synchronous mode.
+
+\LZK{Pas trop convainquant comme argument pour valider l'approche de simulation. \\On peut dire par exemple: on a pu simuler différents algos itératifs à large échelle (le plus connu GMRES et deux variantes de multisplitting) et la simulation nous a permis (sans avoir le vrai matériel) de déterminer quelle serait la meilleure solution pour une telle configuration de l'archi ou vice versa.\\A revoir...}
+
+The obtained results on different
+simulated multi-core architectures confirm the real results previously obtained
+on non simulated architectures.
+
+\LZK{Il n y a pas dans la partie expé cette comparaison et confirmation des résultats entre la simulation et l'exécution réelle des algos sur les vrais clusters.\\ Sinon on pourrait ajouter dans la partie expé une référence vers le journal supercomput de krylov multi pour confirmer que cette méthode est meilleure que GMRES sur les clusters large échelle.}
+
+We also confirm the efficiency of the
+asynchronous multisplitting algorithm compared to the synchronous GMRES.
+
+\LZK{P.S.: Pour tout le papier, le principal objectif n'est pas de faire des comparaisons entre des méthodes itératives!!\\Sinon, les deux algorithmes Krylov multisplitting synchrone et multisplitting asynchrone sont plus efficaces que GMRES sur des clusters à large échelle.\\Et préciser, si c'est vraiment le cas, que le multisplitting asynchrone est plus efficace et adapté aux clusters distants par rapport aux deux autres algos (je n'ai pas encore lu la partie expé)}
+
+In
+this way and with a simple computing architecture (a laptop) SimGrid allows us
+to run a test campaign of a real parallel iterative applications on
+different simulated multi-core architectures. To our knowledge, there is no
+related work on the large-scale multi-core simulation of a real synchronous and
+asynchronous iterative application.
+
+This paper is organized as follows. Section~\ref{sec:asynchro} presents the
+iteration model we use and more particularly the asynchronous scheme. In
+section~\ref{sec:simgrid} the SimGrid simulation toolkit is presented.
+Section~\ref{sec:04} details the different solvers that we use. Finally our
+experimental results are presented in section~\ref{sec:expe} followed by some
+concluding remarks and perspectives.
+
+\LZK{Proposition d'un titre pour le papier: Grid-enabled simulation of large-scale linear iterative solvers.}
+
+
+\section{The asynchronous iteration model and the motivations of our work}
+\label{sec:asynchro}
+
+Asynchronous iterative methods have been studied for many years theoritecally and
+practically. Many methods have been considered and convergence results have been
+proved. These methods can be used to solve, in parallel, fixed point problems
+(i.e. problems for which the solution is $x^\star =f(x^\star)$. In practice,
+asynchronous iterations methods can be used to solve, for example, linear and
+non-linear systems of equations or optimization problems, interested readers are
+invited to read~\cite{BT89,bahi07}.
+
+Before using an asynchronous iterative method, the convergence must be
+studied. Otherwise, the application is not ensure to reach the convergence. An
+algorithm that supports both the synchronous or the asynchronous iteration model
+requires very few modifications to be able to be executed in both variants. In
+practice, only the communications and convergence detection are different. In
+the synchronous mode, iterations are synchronized whereas in the asynchronous
+one, they are not. It should be noticed that non blocking communications can be
+used in both modes. Concerning the convergence detection, synchronous variants
+can use a global convergence procedure which acts as a global synchronization
+point. In the asynchronous model, the convergence detection is more tricky as
+it must not synchronize all the processors. Interested readers can
+consult~\cite{myBCCV05c,bahi07,ccl09:ij}.
+
+The number of iterations required to reach the convergence is generally greater
+for the asynchronous scheme (this number depends depends on the delay of the
+messages). Note that, it is not the case in the synchronous mode where the
+number of iterations is the same than in the sequential mode. In this way, the
+set of the parameters of the platform (number of nodes, power of nodes,
+inter and intra clusters bandwidth and latency \ldots) and of the
+application can drastically change the number of iterations required to get the
+convergence. It follows that asynchronous iterative algorithms are difficult to
+optimize since the financial and deployment costs on large scale multi-core
+architecture are often very important. So, prior to delpoyment and tests it
+seems very promising to be able to simulate the behavior of asynchronous
+iterative algorithms. The problematic is then to show that the results produce
+by simulation are in accordance with reality i.e. of the same order of
+magnitude. To our knowledge, there is no study on this problematic.