Title:
A Simulation-based Scalability Study of Parallel Systems
A Simulation-based Scalability Study of Parallel Systems
Author(s)
Sivasubramaniam, Anand
Singla, Aman
Ramachandran, Umakishore
Venkateswaran, H.
Singla, Aman
Ramachandran, Umakishore
Venkateswaran, H.
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Abstract
Scability studies of parallel architectures have used scalar metrics to
evaluate their
performance. Very often, it is difficult to glean the sources of
inefficiency resulting from
the mismatch between the algorithmic and architectural requirements using
such scalar
metrics. Low-level performance studies of the hardware are also
inadequate for
predicting the scalability of the machine on real applications. We propose a top-down
approach to scalability study that alleviates some of these problems. We characterize
applications in terms of the frequently occurring kernels, and their interaction with the
architecture in terms of overheads in the parallel system. An overhead
function is
associated with the algorithmic characteristics as well as their
interaction with the
architectural features. We present a simulation platform called SPASM
(Simulator for
Parallel Architectural Scalability Measurements) that quantifies these
overhead functions.
SPASM separates the algorithmic overhead into its components (such as
latency and
contention). Such a separation is novel and has not been addressed in
any previous study.
We illustrate the top-down approach by considering a case study in
implementing three
NAS parallel kernels on two simulated message-passing platforms.
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Date Issued
1993
Extent
282219 bytes
Resource Type
Text
Resource Subtype
Technical Report