Resource-Efficient, Hierarchical Auto-Tuning of a Hybrid Lattice Boltzmann Computation on the Cray XT4
We apply auto-tuning to a hybrid MPI-pthreads lattice Boltzmann computation running on the Cray XT4 at National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). Previous work showed that multicore-specific auto-tuning can improve the performance of lattice Boltzmann magnetohydrodynamics (LBMHD) by a factor of 4x when running on dual- and quad-core Opteron dual-socket SMPs. We extend these studies to the distributed memory arena via a hybrid MPI/pthreads implementation. In addition to conventional auto-tuning at the local SMP node, we tune at the message-passing level to determine the optimal aspect ratio as well as the correct balance between MPI tasks and threads per MPI task. Our study presents a detailed performance analysis when moving along an isocurve of constant hardware usage: fixed total memory, total cores, and total nodes. Overall, our work points to approaches for improving intra- and inter-node efficiency on large-scale multicore systems for demanding scientific applications.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Computational Research Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 962937
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-2088E; TRN: US0902975
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Cray UserGroup (CUG), 2009
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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