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The potential and perils of multi-level memory

ACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Jayaraj, Jagan J.; Rodrigues, Arun; Hammond, Simon D.; Voskuilen, Gwendolyn R.

The future of memory systems isMulti-LevelMemory (MLM). In a MLM system the main memory is comprised of two or more types of memory instead of a conventional DDR- DRAM-only main memory. By combining different memory technologies, an MLM system can potentially offer more us- Able bandwidth and more capacity for a similar cost as a conventional memory system. However, substantial software and hardware design challenges must be overcome to make this potential real. It is our position that the diversity of application access pat- Terns precludes any simple "one size fits all" approach and that better tools and design processes will be needed to ful- fill the potential of MLM. Effcient implementations of MLM will require a high degree of co-design and coordination be- Tween hardware and software. The simulation framework we have built for this study can aid tool building to solve the programming challenges.

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Two-level main memory co-design: Multi-threaded algorithmic primitives, analysis, and simulation

Proceedings - 2015 IEEE 29th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops, IPDPSW 2015

Bender, Michael A.; Berry, Jonathan W.; Hammond, Simon D.; Hemmert, Karl S.; McCauley, Samuel; Moore, Branden J.; Moseley, Benjamin; Phillips, Cynthia A.; Resnick, David R.; Rodrigues, Arun

A fundamental challenge for supercomputer architecture is that processors cannot be fed data from DRAM as fast as CPUs can consume it. Therefore, many applications are memory-bandwidth bound. As the number of cores per chip increases, and traditional DDR DRAM speeds stagnate, the problem is only getting worse. A variety of non-DDR 3D memory technologies (Wide I/O 2, HBM) offer higher bandwidth and lower power by stacking DRAM chips on the processor or nearby on a silicon interposer. However, such a packaging scheme cannot contain sufficient memory capacity for a node. It seems likely that future systems will require at least two levels of main memory: high-bandwidth, low-power memory near the processor and low-bandwidth high-capacity memory further away. This near memory will probably not have significantly faster latency than the far memory. This, combined with the large size of the near memory (multiple GB) and power constraints, may make it difficult to treat it as a standard cache. In this paper, we explore some of the design space for a user-controlled multi-level main memory. We present algorithms designed for the heterogeneous bandwidth, using streaming to exploit data locality. We consider algorithms for the fundamental application of sorting. Our algorithms asymptotically reduce memory-block transfers under certain architectural parameter settings. We use and extend Sandia National Laboratories' SST simulation capability to demonstrate the relationship between increased bandwidth and improved algorithmic performance. Memory access counts from simulations corroborate predicted performance. This co-design effort suggests implementing two-level main memory systems may improve memory performance in fundamental applications.

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Towards Accurate Application Characterization for Exascale (APEX)

Hammond, Simon D.

Sandia National Laboratories has been engaged in hardware and software codesign activities for a number of years, indeed, it might be argued that prototyping of clusters as far back as the CPLANT machines and many large capability resources including ASCI Red and RedStorm were examples of codesigned solutions. As the research supporting our codesign activities has moved closer to investigating on-node runtime behavior a nature hunger has grown for detailed analysis of both hardware and algorithm performance from the perspective of low-level operations. The Application Characterization for Exascale (APEX) LDRD was a project concieved of addressing some of these concerns. Primarily the research was to intended to focus on generating accurate and reproducible low-level performance metrics using tools that could scale to production-class code bases. Along side this research was an advocacy and analysis role associated with evaluating tools for production use, working with leading industry vendors to develop and refine solutions required by our code teams and to directly engage with production code developers to form a context for the application analysis and a bridge to the research community within Sandia. On each of these accounts significant progress has been made, particularly, as this report will cover, in the low-level analysis of operations for important classes of algorithms. This report summarizes the development of a collection of tools under the APEX research program and leaves to other SAND and L2 milestone reports the description of codesign progress with Sandia’s production users/developers.

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ASC ATDM Level 2 Milestone #5325: Asynchronous Many-Task Runtime System Analysis and Assessment for Next Generation Platforms

Baker, Gavin M.; Bettencourt, Matthew T.; Bova, S.W.; franko, ken f.; Gamell, Marc G.; Grant, Ryan E.; Hammond, Simon D.; Hollman, David S.; Knight, Samuel K.; Kolla, Hemanth K.; Lin, Paul L.; Olivier, Stephen O.; Sjaardema, Gregory D.; Slattengren, Nicole L.; Teranishi, Keita T.; Wilke, Jeremiah J.; Bennett, Janine C.; Clay, Robert L.; kale, laxkimant k.; Jain, Nikhil J.; Mikida, Eric M.; Aiken, Alex A.; Bauer, Michael B.; Lee, Wonchan L.; Slaughter, Elliott S.; Treichler, Sean T.; Berzins, Martin B.; Harman, Todd H.; humphreys, alan h.; schmidt, john s.; sunderland, dan s.; Mccormick, Pat M.; gutierrez, samuel g.; shulz, martin s.; Gamblin, Todd G.; Bremer, Peer-Timo B.

Abstract not provided.

ASC ATDM Level 2 Milestone #5325: Asynchronous Many-Task Runtime System Analysis and Assessment for Next Generation Platforms

Baker, Gavin M.; Bettencourt, Matthew T.; Bova, S.W.; franko, ken f.; Gamell, Marc G.; Grant, Ryan E.; Hammond, Simon D.; Hollman, David S.; Knight, Samuel K.; Kolla, Hemanth K.; Lin, Paul L.; Olivier, Stephen O.; Sjaardema, Gregory D.; Slattengren, Nicole L.; Teranishi, Keita T.; Wilke, Jeremiah J.; Bennett, Janine C.; Clay, Robert L.; kale, laxkimant k.; Jain, Nikhil J.; Mikida, Eric M.; Aiken, Alex A.; Bauer, Michael B.; Lee, Wonchan L.; Slaughter, Elliott S.; Treichler, Sean T.; Berzins, Martin B.; Harman, Todd H.; humphreys, alan h.; schmidt, john s.; sunderland, dan s.; Mccormick, Pat M.; gutierrez, samuel g.; shulz, martin s.; Gamblin, Todd G.; Bremer, Peer-Timo B.

This report provides in-depth information and analysis to help create a technical road map for developing next-generation programming models and runtime systems that support Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) work- load requirements. The focus herein is on asynchronous many-task (AMT) model and runtime systems, which are of great interest in the context of "Oriascale7 computing, as they hold the promise to address key issues associated with future extreme-scale computer architectures. This report includes a thorough qualitative and quantitative examination of three best-of-class AIM] runtime systems – Charm-++, Legion, and Uintah, all of which are in use as part of the Centers. The studies focus on each of the runtimes' programmability, performance, and mutability. Through the experiments and analysis presented, several overarching Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program II (PSAAP-II) Asc findings emerge. From a performance perspective, AIV runtimes show tremendous potential for addressing extreme- scale challenges. Empirical studies show an AM runtime can mitigate performance heterogeneity inherent to the machine itself and that Message Passing Interface (MP1) and AM11runtimes perform comparably under balanced conditions. From a programmability and mutability perspective however, none of the runtimes in this study are currently ready for use in developing production-ready Sandia ASC applications. The report concludes by recommending a co- design path forward, wherein application, programming model, and runtime system developers work together to define requirements and solutions. Such a requirements-driven co-design approach benefits the community as a whole, with widespread community engagement mitigating risk for both application developers developers. and high-performance computing runtime systein

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ASC Trilab L2 Codesign Milestone 2015

Trott, Christian R.; Hammond, Simon D.; Dinge, Dennis D.; Lin, Paul L.; Vaughan, Courtenay T.; Cook, Jeanine C.; Rajan, Mahesh R.; Edwards, Harold C.; Hoekstra, Robert J.

For the FY15 ASC L2 Trilab Codesign milestone Sandia National Laboratories performed two main studies. The first study investigated three topics (performance, cross-platform portability and programmer productivity) when using OpenMP directives and the RAJA and Kokkos programming models available from LLNL and SNL respectively. The focus of this first study was the LULESH mini-application developed and maintained by LLNL. In the coming sections of the report the reader will find performance comparisons (and a demonstration of portability) for a variety of mini-application implementations produced during this study with varying levels of optimization. Of note is that the implementations utilized including optimizations across a number of programming models to help ensure claims that Kokkos can provide native-class application performance are valid. The second study performed during FY15 is a performance assessment of the MiniAero mini-application developed by Sandia. This mini-application was developed by the SIERRA Thermal-Fluid team at Sandia for the purposes of learning the Kokkos programming model and so is available in only a single implementation. For this report we studied its performance and scaling on a number of machines with the intent of providing insight into potential performance issues that may be experienced when similar algorithms are deployed on the forthcoming Trinity ASC ATS platform.

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Results 176–200 of 266
Results 176–200 of 266