University
of Ljubljana
Faculty
of civil engineering
and geodesy
High-throughput computing in
engineering
CST & ECT 2008 Matevž Dolenc & Matjaž Dolšek
Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Content
‣ Introduction
- Observations, utilisation of computing resources
‣ Computing environments
- Volunteer computing, high-throughput computing
‣ End-user scenarios
- A seismic response database
- A probabilistic performance assessment of a
structure
‣ Summary and future work
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Important observations
‣ Modern research relies more and more on
computers - in-silica experiments.
‣ The majority of the world’s computing power is no
longer in supercomputer centres and institutional
machine rooms.
‣ Almost every organisation is sitting atop enormous
unused computing capacity that is widely distributed.
‣ In science and in engineering in general parametric
studies are of high importance.
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Available computer resources
‣ UNIX® servers are actually “serving” something
less than 10 percent of the time.
‣ Most PCs do nothing for 95 percent of a typical day.
‣ Imagine ...
- ... an airline with 90 percent of its fleet on the
ground
- ... an auto maker with 40 percent of its assembly
plants idle
- ... a hotel chain with 95 percent of its rooms
unoccupied
Source: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/newto/index.html
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Computing resource utilisation in computer
classrooms at UL-FGG
Source: http://grmada.fgg.uni-lj.si/condor-view
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Computing resource utilisation in computer
classrooms at UL-FGG
Free Used
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Computing resource utilisation in computer
classrooms at UL-FGG
Free Used Computer resource offline
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Computing resource utilisation in computer
classrooms at UL-FGG
A computer classroom at UL-FGG
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

HPC vs HTC
‣ HPC – High Performance Computing
- Floating point operations per second (FLOPS)
- static environments, single large scale problems
- protocols: MPI, PVM, ...
‣ HTC – High Throughput Computing
- environment that can deliver large amounts of
processing capacity over long periods of time
- dynamic environments, parallel independent jobs,
parametric studies, ...
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Volunteer computing
‣ Volunteer computing is a type of distributed
computing in which computer owners donate their
computing resources to one or more ”projects”
‣ Suitable for problems that are highly parallel in
nature, but not other types of parallel problems
‣ Example projects:
- SETI@Home, Einstein@Home, ...
‣ Different available software solutions:
- Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network
Computing (BOINC)
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Volunteer computing
‣ Technical issues
- heterogeneous distributed model, security,
connectivity, ...
‣ Non-technical issues
- Trust - can results be trusted / will project destroy
my data
‣ Why donate computing power?
- Help out science, help cure a disease, or any other
reason
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Volunteer computing
Source: http://boinc.netsoft-online.com/e107 plugins/boinc/bp.php?project=2
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

High-throughput computing (HPC)
‣ HPC environment delivers large amounts of
computational power over a long period of time.
‣ Several computing system solutions:
- Condor, Torque, Sun Grid Engine ...
- Use of dedicated or non-dedicated computing
resources.
- Integration with different grid technology
software solutions
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

High-throughput computing (HPC)
‣ Condor
- ... is a batch queuing system to manage compute-
intensive jobs
- ... provides an application programming interface
compatible with Distributed Resource
Management Application (DRMAA)
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

High-throughput computing (HPC)
Source: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/map/map.europe.color.large.gif
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

End-user scenarios - earthquake engineering
‣ A move from traditional single limit state
deterministic techniques to multiple performance
objectives in terms of probabilities of different
socio-economic decisions variables.
‣ A probabilistic performance assessment of a
structure
- difficult and time consuming task
- complex non-linear dynamic analyses
- # of analyses: different structural models (loss,
capacity, demand, seismic hazard), several ground
motion records, multiple levels of intensity
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

A seismic response database
‣ Develop tools to enable ?*2)/2.$)*-),4) !\"#$%&'&(&)*)
?*2)/2.$4*)0,-)*$%&'&(&)*
reliable prediction of
seismic risk based on the
best knowledge regarding
earthquakes
‣ Seismic response database
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- new applications for E00<2.&'2,-)B
different end-users A 8-*<&)'2.$)0*.'4&
A F4*.*%*-.*$<2)'$,G$!\"#
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‣ Use of volunteer computing A$DDD
technology
‣ Application is currently
tested locally at UL-FGG
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High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

A probabilistic performance assessment of a
structure
‣ A probabilistic performance assessment is de-aggregated into
independent models (loss, capacity, demand, seismic) ... IDA analysis
is used to determine the relation between the engineering demand
parameter and seismic intensity measure
‣ Each structural model has to be subjected to several ground motion
records, scaled to multiple levels of intensity in order to obtain
enough data about the behaviour of the structure
‣ Use of high-throughput computing technology
@87#%(\"&$+7),#$(*9 AB#+CD<+,&'&6&-#-
!\"\"#$#%&'()*+%#\")%,-
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;<!+&*&$=-(-+>)%?4$)>
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%#-)8%\"#-+:+$)\"&$+')+)%9&*(-&'()*
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

A probabilistic performance assessment of a
structure
‣ Performance analysis
- Number of analyses: 280
- Average analysis time: ~13 min
# of computers analysis time [hours] speed-up factor
1 61.3 1
5 14.7 4.17
10 7.1 8.63
25 2.5 24.52
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si

Summary and future work
‣ Different computing environments ware presented
- Enable various parametric studies or other highly
parallel analyses
- End-user scenarios and applications
- Use of spare computing resources
‣ Future work
- More research on volunteer computing is needed
- Integration with existing applications
- Offer better end-user experience
High-throughput computing in engineering CST & ECT 2008, Athens, Greece, 2-5 September 2008 mdolenc@itc.fgg.uni-lj.si