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At least 199 records · Page 11

Optimizing I/O Forwarding Techniques for Extreme-Scale Event Tracing

Programming development tools are a vital com- ponent for understanding the behavior of parallel applica- tions. Event tracing is a principal ingredient to these tools, but new and serious challenges place event tracing at risk on extreme-scale machines. As the quantity of captured events increases with concurrency, the additional data can over- load the parallel file system and perturb the application be- ing observed. In this work we present a solution for event tracing on extreme-scale machines. We enhance an I/O for- warding software layer to aggregate and reorganize log data prior to writing to the storage system, significantly reduc- ing the burden on the underlying file system. Furthermore, we introduce a sophisticated write buffering capability to limit the impact. To validate the approach, we employ the Vampir tracing toolset using these new capabilities. Our re- sults demonstrate that the approach increases the maximum traced application size by a factor of 5x to more than 200,000 processes.

atomic append↗

Moving Large Data Sets Over High-Performance Long Distance Networks

In this project we look at the performance characteristics of three tools used to move large data sets over dedicated long distance networking infrastructure. Although performance studies of wide area networks have been a frequent topic of interest, performance analyses have tended to focus on network latency characteristics and peak throughput using network traffic generators. In this study we instead perform an end-to-end long distance networking analysis that includes reading large data sets from a source file system and committing large data sets to a destination file system. An evaluation of end-to-end data movement is also an evaluation of the system configurations employed and the tools used to move the data. For this paper, we have built several storage platforms and connected them with a high performance long distance network configuration. We use these systems to analyze the capabilities of three data movement tools: BBcp, GridFTP, and XDD. Our studies demonstrate that existing data movement tools do not provide efficient performance levels or exercise the storage devices in their highest performance modes. We describe the device information required to achieve high levels of I/O performance and discuss how this data is applicable in use cases beyond data movement performance.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Applied Parallel Metadata Indexing

The GPFS Archive is parallel archive is a parallel archive used by hundreds of users in the Turquoise collaboration network. It houses 4+ petabytes of data in more than 170 million files. Currently, users must navigate the file system to retrieve their data, requiring them to remember file paths and names. A better solution might allow users to tag data with meaningful labels and searach the archive using standard and user-defined metadata, while maintaining security. last summer, I developed the backend to a tool that adheres to these design goals. The backend works by importing GPFS metadata into a MongoDB cluster, which is then indexed on each attribute. This summer, the author implemented security and developed the user interfae for the search tool. To meet security requirements, each database table is associated with a single user, which only stores records that the user may read, and requires a set of credentials to access. The interface to the search tool is implemented using FUSE (Filesystem in USErspace). FUSE is an intermediate layer that intercepts file system calls and allows the developer to redefine how those calls behave. In the case of this tool, FUSE interfaces with MongoDB to issue queries and populate output. A FUSE implementation is desirable because it allows users to interact with the search tool using commands they are already familiar with. These security and interface additions are essential for a usable product.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Fault Oblivious eXascale Whitepaper

In this paper we present a software system which supports dynamic, irregular, adaptive applications. Data objects are created and structured in a hierarchical manner, with replication as needed to provide a high degree of redundancy. The data objects can contain data, code, tasks (work descriptors with references to data, code, and other tasks) and higher level structures such as work queues. The higher level structures benefit from the properties of the data objects: redundant storage to support resiliency in the face of hardware failure; hierarchical structure to optimize use of the HPC system; and a presence of object names, available in the per-user file system name space, which allows any application, not just specially written HPC applications, to make use of the data even while it is on the HPC system. Our use of hierarchy will make the runtime scalable to very large systems. Our use of redundancy will allow programs to be written in a fault-oblivious manner, eliminating the need for system-level checkpointing. Putting data object names into the file system name space allows for interactive use of the system by users. With this approach, we will be able to finally leave the batch era behind, a half-century after the invention of time sharing. We will be able to stop bounding program through- put by the checkpoint interval. Application data will be accessible at any time, not hidden behind opaque 128-bit pointers or MPI ranks, but given a name that is visible everywhere. Programmers can stop laying out data, and thinking about where the data is, and the code is, and the nodes are, and stick with the problem of what the application is supposed to be doing. This work, if it succeeds, will enable scientific computing to scale to the next generation of machines.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

MRO SOW Daily Script

The MRO SOW daily script (wherein "MRO" signifies "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" and "SOW" signifies "sequence systems engineer of the week") is a computer program that automates portions of the MRO daily SOW procedure, which includes checking file-system sizes and automated sequence processor (ASP) log files. The MRO SOW daily script effects clear reporting of (1) the status of, and requirements imposed on, the file system and (2) the ASP log files.

Fisher, Forest E.↗

Characterizing Impacts of Storage Faults on HPC Applications: A methodology and insights

In recent years, the increasing complexity in scientific simulations and emerging demands for training heavy artificial intelligence models require massive and fast data accesses, which urges high-performance computing (HPC) platforms to equip with more advanced storage infrastructures such as solid-state disks (SSDs). While SSDs offer high-performance I/O, it remains unclear about the reliability challenges faced by the HPC applications under the SSD-related failures, in particular, failures resulting in data corruptions. The goal of this paper is to understand the impact of SSD-related data corruptions on the behaviors of complex HPC applications. To this end, we propose FFIS, a FUSE-based fault injection framework that systematically introduces storage faults into the application layer to model the errors originated from SSDs. FFIS is able to plant different I/O related faults into the data returned from underlying file systems, which also enables the investigation on the error resilience characteristics of the scientific file format for the first time. We demonstrate the use of FFIS with three representative real HPC applications, show how each application reacts to the data corruptions, and provide insights on the error resilience of the widely-adopted HDF5 file format for the HPC applications.

Fang, Bo↗

Software Implements a Space-Mission File-Transfer Protocol

CFDP is a computer program that implements the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) File Delivery Protocol, which is an international standard for automatic, reliable transfers of files of data between locations on Earth and in outer space. CFDP administers concurrent file transfers in both directions, delivery of data out of transmission order, reliable and unreliable transmission modes, and automatic retransmission of lost or corrupted data by use of one or more of several lost-segment-detection modes. The program also implements several data-integrity measures, including file checksums and optional cyclic redundancy checks for each protocol data unit. The metadata accompanying each file can include messages to users application programs and commands for operating on remote file systems.

Rundstrom, Kathleen↗

Holistic Measurement Driven Resilience: Combining Operational Fault and Failure Measurements and Fault Injection for Quantifying Fault Detection, Propagation and Impact. Final report

For HPC systems to date, application resilience to faults and failures has been accomplished by the brute- force method of checkpoint/restart, which allows an application to make forward progress in the face of system and application faults, errors, and failures independent of root cause or end result. It has remained the primary resilience mechanism because we lack a way to identify faults and anticipate consequences early enough to take meaningful mitigating action. However, checkpoint/restart implementations put a tremendous burden on system resources and on the applications themselves and is becoming less feasible at scale. Because we have not yet operated at scales at which checkpoint/restart fails to provide forward progress, despite increasing costs, vendors have had little motivation to provide the instrumentation necessary for early identification of faults and failures. However, as we move from petascale to exascale, component mean time to failure (MTTF) will render the existing techniques ineffectual and/or too expensive. Furthermore, fault recovery mechanisms such as failover and/or error correction introduce performance inconsistency. Instrumentation allowing early indication of problems and tools to enable use of such information by systems, operating systems, and applications offer an alternative, more scalable and less costly solution. In the HMDR project, we built on our experience and expertise developed and accumulated over years of research on design, monitoring, measurement, and assessment of resilient computing systems. Analysis of field data on the current and past generations of extreme-scale systems revealed several challenges that, if not addressed in increasingly larger and more complex systems, may hinder the effectiveness of future exascale computing systems. Specifically, i) file systems and interconnects in current-generation large-scale systems already operate at the margins of resiliency, including consistent performance, and may not scale to larger deployments; ii) automated, software-based failover mechanisms are frequently inadequate and can introduce wider failures, such that failures during recovery may lead to system/application failures, including system-wide outages; and iii) silent data corruption represents a critical fault mode and will require efficient detection mechanisms if next-generation applications are to take full advantage of exascale hardware. To address the above challenges, we assembled a team of world-renowned experts in resilient extreme- scale computing from the University of Illinois (Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and NCSA), SNL, LANL, NERSC, and Cray. Our team includes representatives from centers that house many of the largest HPC resources in the world, both today and over the coming years. The team has a unique track record of research in i) system and application failure characterization based on the analysis of field data, ii) data-driven design of fault/error detection mechanisms, and iii) experimental characterization of system/application resiliency. The team includes system owners/operators who provide continuous data collection and access and ensure installation of appropriate analysis tools.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Management and Storage of Scientific Data

Scientific discoveries rely heavily on efficient access, search, and management of massive data sets. Data management technologies have, for decades, provided foundational capabilities for scientific computing. Just as storage, input/output (I/O), and data management have been fundamental to simulation-based science for many years, so too are capable data-management technologies key to the success of today’s scientific workflows utilizing data intensive and machine learning (ML) techniques. The Department of Energy, Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program has invested broadly in data-management research focused on high-performance computing (HPC) systems, from parallel file systems that store data to application software that makes these systems more productive. Still, advances in technology combined with growing diversity of supported science strongly motivate continued investment in this area. In January 2022, ASCR convened a workshop to identify priority research directions in the area of data management for high-performance and scientific computing. Attendees were challenged to identify promising approaches that would support the breadth of the DOE mission, including the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) uses and the growing needs of experimental and observational science. Technological and science drivers were identified and considered as they relate to key aspects of data management such as interfaces, architectural design, and FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). The thoughts of the workshop participants were distilled into a set of four priority research directions with the potential for high impact on DOE science. These research directions are summarized in the following pages.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Orchestrating Fault Prediction with Live Migration and Checkpointing

Checkpoint/Restart (C/R) is widely used to provide fault tolerance on High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems. However, Parallel File System (PFS) overhead and failure uncertainty cause significant application overhead. This paper develops an adaptive multi-level C/R model that incorporates a failure prediction and analysis model, which orchestrates failure prediction, checkpointing, checkpoint frequency, and proactive live migration along with the additional benefit of Burst Buffers (BB). It effectively reduces the overheads due to failures, checkpointing, and recovery. Simulation results for the Summit supercomputer yield a reduction of ~20%-86% in application overhead due to BBs, orchestrated failure prediction, and migration. We also observe a ~29% decrease in checkpoint writes to BBs, which can increase the longevity of the BB storage devices.

Behera, Subhendu↗

Could Blobs Fuel Storage-Based Convergence between HPC and Big Data?

The increasingly growing data sets processed on HPC platforms raise major challenges for the underlying storage layer. A promising alternative to POSIX-IO- compliant file systems are simpler blobs (binary large objects), or object storage systems. Such systems offer lower overhead and better performance at the cost of largely unused features such as file hierarchies or permissions. Similarly, blobs are increasingly considered for replacing distributed file systems for big data analytics or as a base for storage abstractions such as key-value stores or time-series databases. This growing interest in such object storage on HPC and big data platforms raises the question: Are blobs the right level of abstraction to enable storage-based convergence between HPC and Big Data? In this paper we study the impact of blob-based storage for real-world applications on HPC and cloud environments. The results show that blobbased storage convergence is possible, leading to a significant performance improvement on both platforms

Matri, Pierre↗

Organizing and Typing Persistent Objects Within an Object-Oriented Framework

Conventional operating systems provide little or no direct support for the services required for an efficient persistent object system implementation. We have built a persistent object scheme using a customization and extension of an object-oriented operating system called Choices. Choices includes a framework for the storage of persistent data that is suited to the construction of both conventional file system and persistent object system. In this paper we describe three areas in which persistent object support differs from file system support: storage organization, storage management, and typing. Persistent object systems must support various sizes of objects efficiently. Customizable containers, which are themselves persistent objects and can be nested, support a wide range of object sizes in Choices. Collections of persistent objects that are accessed as an aggregate and collections of light-weight persistent objects can be clustered in containers that are nested within containers for larger objects. Automated garbage collection schemes are added to storage management and have a major impact on persistent object applications. The Choices persistent object store provides extensible sets of persistent object types. The store contains not only the data for persistent objects but also the names of the classes to which they belong and the code for the operation of the classes. Besides presenting persistent object storage organization, storage management, and typing, this paper discusses how persistent objects are named and used within the Choices persistent data/file system framework.

Madany, Peter W.↗

Network issues for large mass storage requirements

File Servers and Supercomputing environments need high performance networks to balance the I/O requirements seen in today's demanding computing scenarios. UltraNet is one solution which permits both high aggregate transfer rates and high task-to-task transfer rates as demonstrated in actual tests. UltraNet provides this capability as both a Server-to-Server and Server-to-Client access network giving the supercomputing center the following advantages highest performance Transport Level connections (to 40 MBytes/sec effective rates); matches the throughput of the emerging high performance disk technologies, such as RAID, parallel head transfer devices and software striping; supports standard network and file system applications using SOCKET's based application program interface such as FTP, rcp, rdump, etc.; supports access to the Network File System (NFS) and LARGE aggregate bandwidth for large NFS usage; provides access to a distributed, hierarchical data server capability using DISCOS UniTree product; supports file server solutions available from multiple vendors, including Cray, Convex, Alliant, FPS, IBM, and others.

Perdue, James↗

Amalgam

Amalgam is a system that allows you to generate collections of files that work with conventional tools but take up minimal extra space on storage. If you already are archiving files in a file system and don't want to make multiple copies of whole files in order to ship the data somewhere then this system is for you. Amalgam consists of tools that allow you to create and get information about '.amalgam' files which contain just the metadata associated with a set of files. It also contains a fuse file system that, using amalgam files, will dynamically create traditional tar files. With this setup, you can see multiple orders of magnitude reduction in storage requirements for temporary data collections.

Fox, Kevin↗

Amalgam

Amalgam is a system that allows you to generate collections of files that work with conventional tools but take up minimal extra space on storage. If you already are archiving files in a file system and don't want to make multiple copies of whole files in order to ship the data somewhere then this system is for you. Amalgam consists of tools that allow you to create and get information about '.amalgam' files which contain just the metadata associated with a set of files. It also contains a fuse file system that, using amalgam files, will dynamically create traditional tar files. With this setup, you can see multiple orders of magnitude reduction in storage requirements for temporary data collections.

Fox, Kevin↗

Deactivation and decommissioning web log analysis using big data technology - 15710

The D and D Knowledge Management Information Tool (D and D KM- IT) is a web-based knowledge management information tool built for the D and D user community. Big data is a massive volume of structured and unstructured datasets which is so large that it's difficult to process using traditional database techniques. Web logs are the repository of files which are generated automatically for any operation on the web site. Web log files generated from the D and D KM-IT will be processed using the Apache Hadoop Framework to extract meaningful data. Hadoop is an open-source software framework for storing and processing big data in a distributed environment on large clusters of commodity hardware. Hadoop framework consists of two main layers: Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) and the Execution engine (MapReduce). Automatic parallelization and distribution; clean and simple programming abstraction. Implementation: Web log files from the D and D KM-IT server are fetched using Apache Flume and loaded into the Hadoop distributed file system. Using the Apache Hcatalog tool, the web log data is parsed and converted into a structured table format. A Pig program is developed to query the tables to retrieve and store the significant information onto the HDFS. The extracted data is fed to business visualization tools such as Microsoft Excel for analysis and reporting. Results The reports generated through the web log data processing will be analyzed to improve the usability and performance of the D and D KM-IT. Conclusion/Future Work: User keyword information can be explored to add new trending topics to the D and D KM-IT application. Statistics generated can be compared to analysis reports from existing analytical tools.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Method and system for semantic metadata compression in a two-tier storage system using copy-on-write

Example embodiments of the present invention relate to a method, a system, and a computer program product for managing metadata. The method includes determining a common characteristic of metadata entries for a plurality of files in a directory of a file system and computing a representative metadata entry for the plurality of metadata entries according to the common characteristic of the metadata entries. The plurality of metadata entries in the file system then may be represented according to the computed representative metadata entry.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Containers for Massive Ensemble of I/O Bound Hierarchical Coupled Simulations

We present our experience using containers to scale up a massive ensemble of coupled I/O bound workloads on the NERSC Cori supercomputer. We describe the design of a hierarchical simulation structure using the Integrated Plasma Simulator (IPS) that enables the flexible execution of coupled simulations at the system, node, and core level using the same coupling abstraction and API. The hierarchical design allows for the node-level execution to be efficiently executed using containers while not impacting the structure of the simulation at the system level. We demonstrate the viability of the approach by presenting experimental results from applications in coupled fusion plasma simulations that illustrate the performance impact of using containers to deploy the node-level workloads, in conjunction with the user mountable XFS file systems to ameliorate the load on the Lustre parallel file system. We also present results from production runs showing the ability of the ensemble simulations to scale to hundreds of Cori Haswell nodes, with little or no overhead.

Elwasif, Wael↗