The document discusses IBM's Power8 as a platform for high-performance computing (HPC), detailing its applications in various scientific fields such as cosmology and molecular biology. It highlights the architecture of IBM systems, including the use of NVIDIA GPUs, and presents the software stack supporting these systems, including mathematical libraries. The document advocates for a data-centric computing approach as a new paradigm for HPC, emphasizing efficiency in resource utilization.

1. IBM POWER8 as an HPC platform
Alexander Pozdneev, Georgy Pavlov
IBM
October 23, 2015 — IBM Linux on Power: Platform News
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2. What is HPC?
• HPC — High Performance Computing
• A.k.a. technical computing
• Aeroacoustics: Effects of chevrons on jet noise
• Supersonic jet engine noise computational fluid dynamics simulation
• 128k Blue Gene/P cores — ≈ 100 hours
• 1M Blue Gene/Q cores — ≈ 12 hours
http://youtu.be/cjoz5tncRUs http://youtu.be/uxT-VmY3OWc
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3. Secrets of the Dark Universe
• Cosmology: The evolution of the Universe simulation
• Understanding the physics of the dark matter and energy
• 1 BG/Q rack — 68B particles
• 32 BG/Q racks — 1.1T particles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdv8yrJk4VE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S-T_iTiAxQ
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4. Real-time modeling of human heart ventricles
• Physiology: Simulation of drug-induced
arrhythmias
• Resolution — 0.1 mm
• 768k Blue Gene/Q cores
• 43% peak
• http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2388999
• LLNL, IBM Research, IBM Research
Collaboratory for Life Sciences
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5. Modelling of a complete human viral pathogen poliovirus
• Molecular biology: Reconstruction and simulation of poliovirus
• Antiviral drugs, virus infection, modelling related viruses
• 3.3M–3.7M atoms
• Blue Gene/Q, Victorian Life Sciences Computing Initiative
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nih0Qa673FY
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6. Speakers
• Alexander Pozdneev
Research Software Engineer
HPC
• Georgy Pavlov
Software Engineer
ESSL Russian team leader
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7. Outline
1 Data centric computing as a new HPC paradigm
2 Architecture of IBM HPC systems based on POWER8+NVIDIA servers
3 Software stack of IBM HPC systems
4 IBM HPC mathematical libraries
5 Measuring efficiency of an HPC system on real applications
6 Summary
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8. Application diversity
Image credit: http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?htmlfid=POL03229USEN
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9. Data centric computing as a new HPC paradigm
• That is all about moving data around
• Memory bandwidth
• Memory latency
• High value of “memory access operations” / “computations”
• Number of FLOPs1 per cycle is no longer relevant
• Offloading computing to memory (Active Memory Cube by Micron)
1
FLOP — Floating-Point Operation
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10. Department of Energy CORAL project
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11. IBM systems in CORAL project
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12. Architecture of POWER8+NVIDIA systems for HPC
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13. Overview of IBM Power System S822LC
Power S822LC model 8335-GTA
• POWER8 processor module:
8-core, 3.32 GHz
10-core, 2.92 GHz
• Two sockets
• Graphics processing units
Two NVIDIA K80 GPUs
• Eight memory slots
• 2U height
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14. Architecture of IBM Power System S822LC
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15. System software
Software stack of IBM HPC systems
• System software
Operating system: Linux, bare-metal (no virtualization)
Drivers:
• Mellanox InfiniBand OFED
• NVIDIA
Deployment: xCAT
• Parallel operating environment
IBM Parallel Environment Runtime Edition (PE RTE)
Workload scheduler: IBM Platform LSF
Parallel filesystem: IBM Spectrum Scale (“GPFS”2
)
2
General Parallel File System
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16. Development tools
Software stack of IBM HPC systems
• Compilers
IBM XL C/C++/Fortran compilers
IBM Advance Toolchain, http://ibm.co/AdvanceToolchain
• Fork of GNU compiler/tools optimized for POWER8
• gcc, g++, gfortran
• Analysis tools (oprofile, valgrind, itrace)
Vanilla GCC, binutils, etc.
CUDA Toolkit
• IBM Parallel Environment Developer Edition (PE DE)
• IBM Software Development Kit for Linux on Power
• Mathematical libraries
Mathematical Acceleration Subsystem (MASS)
IBM Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library (ESSL)
IBM Parallel ESSL
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17. Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library
• High-performance mathematical functions
Scientific applications
Engineering applications
• Platforms
IBM POWER servers
IBM POWER clusters
• Libraries
ESSL Serial and SMP: 600+ subroutines
(SMP — Symmetric Multi-Processing)
Parallel ESSL: 125+ subroutines
• Languages:
C
C++
Fortran
http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/software/essl
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18. ESSL: Industry de facto standards
• ESSL implements the following interfaces:
BLAS (linear algebra)
LAPACK (linear algebra)
FFTW (Fourier transformation)
• Parallel ESSL implements the following interfaces:
ScaLAPACK
• Easy migration
• Just recompile! http://fftw.org
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19. What mathematical areas are supported?
ESSL
• Linear algebra subprograms
• Matrix operations
• Linear algebraic equations
• Eigensystems analysis
• Fourier transforms, convolution,
correlation, . . .
• Sorting and searching
• Interpolation
• Numerical quadrature
• Random number generation
Parallel ESSL
• BLACS
• Level 2 parallel BLAS
• Level 3 parallel BLAS
• Linear algebraic equations
• Eigensystems analysis
• Fourier transforms
• Random number generation
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20. How to leverage the hardware?
Symmetric multiprocessing:
• Multiple hardware threads
• Multiple cores
POWER8+NVIDIA:
• Use multiple GPUs
• Select which GPU to use
• Run ESSL in a hybrid mode
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21. Synthetic benchmarks vs. real apps
Measuring car pollution in official tests?
• You get low toxic nitrogen oxides in a lab environment
• You cannot predict how much smoke you produce,
unless you test your scenarios
• You would run a testdrive prior to car purchase
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22. Threads behavior: Typical vs. HPC
Typical workload
HPC workload
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23. Importance of threads affinity
NAS Parallel Benchmarks, mg.C (peaks at SMT1), 20 cores
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24. Choice of compilation parameters: -O5 -qnohot
NAS Parallel Benchmarks, bt.C, affinity, baseline: -O3 -qhot
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25. Compilation parameters: -O3 -qhot, -O5 -qprefetch
NAS Parallel Benchmarks, mg.C, affinity, baseline: -O5 -qnohot
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26. Choice of an SMT mode: SMT1
NAS Parallel Benchmarks, mg.C, affinity, baseline: SMT8
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27. Choice of an SMT mode: SMT2, SMT4
NAS Parallel Benchmarks, bt.C, affinity, baseline: SMT1
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28. Choice of an SMT mode: SMT8
NAS Parallel Benchmarks, cg.C, affinity, baseline: SMT1
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29. Summary
• Technical computing problems ⇒ need for HPC
• Data centric computing as a new HPC paradigm
• CORAL project
• IBM Power System S822LC model 8335-GTA
• IBM HPC Software stack
• High performance math libraries
• Leveraging performance
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30. Publications
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248263.html
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31. Further reads
• XL C/C++ for Linux,
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSXVZZ/
• XL Fortran for Linux,
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSAT4T/
• XL C/C++ for Linux 13.1.2 Optimization and Programming Guide,
http:
//www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSXVZZ_13.1.2/com.
ibm.xlcpp1312.lelinux.doc/proguide/optimization.html
• XL Fortran for Linux 15.1.2 Optimization and Programming Guide,
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSAT4T_15.1.
2/com.ibm.xlf1512.lelinux.doc/proguide/optimization.html
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32. Relevance of LINPACK
• Based on DGEMM()
• 80–90% of peak performance
• Commercial deployment verification test for large systems
• Proprietary binary files run by the installation team
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33. LINPACK vs. HPC analytics
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34. Benchmarking methodology options
1. Take one core for the initial tuning
Try SMT1, SMT2, SMT4, SMT8
(number of threads + affinity + -qtune=pwr8:XXX
Try different optimization options (-O3, -O4, . . . )
2. Choose SMT-mode and compiler options that provide the best timing
3. Take one core as a baseline
Run on 1–5 cores (within one chip)
Run on 5 and 10 cores (within one socket)
Run on 10 and 20 cores
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35. POWER8 features
• Eight threads per core
Hide memory latency (like GPU3
)
Instuction flow is arbitrary (unlike GPU)
• Memory bandwidth
• No sense in benchmarking only one thread (like in GPU)
• Scalability within a core depends only on the application
• Advanced features to try
Transactional memory
Relaxed memory model
Decimal floating point unit
3
GPU — Graphical Processing Unit
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36. Disclaimer
All the information, representations, statements, opinions and proposals in this
document are correct and accurate to the best of our present knowledge but are
not intended (and should not be taken) to be contractually binding unless and
until they become the subject of separate, specific agreement between us.
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accompanying the applicable Machine.
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IBM products are subject to withdrawal from marketing and or service upon
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in price changes.
Any references in this document to “partner” or “partnership” do not constitute or
imply a partnership in the sense of the Partnership Act 1890.
IBM is not responsible for printing errors in this proposal that result in pricing or
information inaccuracies.
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