Predicting MPI-Based Parallel Application Performance on Workstation Clusters Using LogGP

Michael Brim

Abstract: As clusters of commodity workstations continue to grow in popularity, so does their use as high-performance parallel application architectures. Current high-performance computing (HPC) clusters have processor counts in the hundreds, and many initiatives are already underway that plan to incorporate the use of clusters with thousands to tens of thousands of processors. Furthermore, much research is ongoing in the area of computational grids, where distributed HPC sites can be used together in order to solve ever-increasing size problems. In planning these large-scale systems, most researchers have been focusing on the hardware and software infrastructure requirements, while projections of application performance on these systems are few. The goal of this project is to develop a model of a common HPC parallel benchmark application that will enable accurate predictions of the performance of similar applications on these large-scale systems.

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