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At least 289 records · Page 16

The Linux operating system: An introduction

Linux is a Unix-like operating system for Intel 386/486/Pentium based IBM-PCs and compatibles. The kernel of this operating system was written from scratch by Linus Torvalds and, although copyrighted by the author, may be freely distributed. A world-wide group has collaborated in developing Linux on the Internet. Linux can run the powerful set of compilers and programming tools of the Free Software Foundation, and XFree86, a port of the X Window System from MIT. Most capabilities associated with high performance workstations, such as networking, shared file systems, electronic mail, TeX, LaTeX, etc. are freely available for Linux. It can thus transform cheap IBM-PC compatible machines into Unix workstations with considerable capabilities. The author explains how Linux may be obtained, installed and networked. He also describes some interesting applications for Linux that are freely available. The enormous consumer market for IBM-PC compatible machines continually drives down prices of CPU chips, memory, hard disks, CDROMs, etc. Linux can convert such machines into powerful workstations that can be used for teaching, research and software development. For professionals who use Unix based workstations at work, Linux permits virtually identical working environments on their personal home machines. For cost conscious educational institutions Linux can create world-class computing environments from cheap, easily maintained, PC clones. Finally, for university students, it provides an essentially cost-free path away from DOS into the world of Unix and X Windows.

Bokhari, Shahid H.↗

Data Partitioning and Load Balancing in Parallel Disk Systems

Parallel disk systems provide opportunities for exploiting I/O parallelism in two possible waves, namely via inter-request and intra-request parallelism. In this paper we discuss the main issues in performance tuning of such systems, namely striping and load balancing, and show their relationship to response time and throughput. We outline the main components of an intelligent, self-reliant file system that aims to optimize striping by taking into account the requirements of the applications and performs load balancing by judicious file allocation and dynamic redistributions of the data when access patterns change. Our system uses simple but effective heuristics that incur only little overhead. We present performance experiments based on synthetic workloads and real-life traces.

Scheuermann, Peter↗

SharP Hash: A High-Performing Distributed Hash for Extreme-Scale Systems

A high-performing distributed hash is critical for achieving performance in many applications and system software using extreme-scale systems. It is also a central part of many Big-Data frameworks including Memcached, file systems, and job schedulers. However, there is a lack of high-performing distributed hash implementations. In this work, we propose, design, and implement, SharP Hash, a high-performing, RDMA-based distributed hash for extreme-scale systems. SharP Hash's high performance is obtained through the use of high-performing networks and one-sided semantics. We perform an evaluation of SharP Hash and demonstrate its performance characteristics with a synthetic micro-benchmark and implementation of a Key Value (KV) store, Memcached.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Analyzing the Impact of System Reliability Events on Applications in the Titan Supercomputer

Extreme-scale computing systems employ Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS) mechanisms and infrastructure to log events from multiple system components. In this paper, we analyze RAS logs in conjunction with the application placement and scheduling database, in order to understand the impact of common RAS events on application performance. This study conducted on the records of about 2 million applications executed on Titan supercomputer provides important insights for system users, operators and computer science researchers. Specifically, we investigate the impact of RAS events on application performance and its variability by comparing cases where events are recorded with corresponding cases where no events are recorded. Such a statistical investigation is possible since we observed that system users tend to execute their applications multiple times. Our analysis reveals that most RAS events do impact application performance, although not always. We also find that different system components affect application performance differently. In particular, our investigation includes the following components: parallel file system processor, memory, graphics processing units, system and user software issues. Our work establishes the importance of providing feedback to system users for increasing operational efficiency of extreme-scale systems.

Ashraf, Rizwan↗

ISOBAR Preconditioner for Effective and High-throughput Lossless Data Compression

Efficient handling of large volumes of data is a necessity for exascale scientific applications and database systems. To address the growing imbalance between the amount of available storage and the amount of data being produced by high speed (FLOPS) processors on the system, data must be compressed to reduce the total amount of data placed on the file systems. General-purpose loss less compression frameworks, such as zlib and bzlib2, are commonly used on datasets requiring loss less compression. Quite often, however, many scientific data sets compress poorly, referred to as hard-to-compress datasets, due to the negative impact of highly entropic content represented within the data. An important problem in better loss less data compression is to identify the hard-to-compress information and subsequently optimize the compression techniques at the byte-level. To address this challenge, we introduce the In-Situ Orthogonal Byte Aggregate Reduction Compression (ISOBAR-compress) methodology as a preconditioner of loss less compression to identify and optimize the compression efficiency and throughput of hard-to-compress datasets.

Computer Science↗

PoliMOR

PoliMOR is a scalable, automated, and customizable policy engine framework for multi-tiered parallel file systems. It is composed of single-purpose agents that handle tasks such as gathering file metadata, making policy decisions, and then executing actions based on those policies. These agents are designed to communicate using distributed message queues, allowing the number of individual agents to be scaled up as needed. PoliMOR automates the data management tasks by precluding the need for admin intervention. The agents in PoliMOR can be customized to integrate any utilities/tools that perform tasks like metadata scanning and data placement management.

Brumgard, Christopher↗

SPS High Bandwidth Transverse Feedback System MD (1/23/2012)

We continue to have problems remaining synchronized with the beam. At this point we are not sure what the cause is. Typical problems associated with the timing shift: loss of synchronization of back end timing with the bunch by as much at a fraction of a nanosecond to several nanoseconds. Sometimes the front end timing changes and sometimes not. We eventually were able to synchronize quickly, by simply looking at the kicker load signal. JC has begun to recognize waveform traces typical of proper synchronization. For these initial tests, this should be good enough. Used a 200 MHz non amplitude modulated signal, measured the sum of the 200 MHz signal out of excitation and feedback systems, file Jan-22-932. Typically, out of the H9, 320 mV pp corresponds to both system begin aligned, with set attenuation. We were able to take many measurements where we scanned the phase of the FIR filter and varied the gain to determine the phase that damps the beam motion. $\phi$ ~ 90°. Performed some drive and damp measurements, driving mode 0, see Table 2 for details. Had a chromaticity sweep implemented and monitored the bunch with feedback on and off, see Table 3 for details.

ACCPHY↗

Contact Graph Routing Enhancements Developed in ION for DTN

The Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION) software suite is an open-source, flight-ready implementation of networking protocols including the Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) Bundle Protocol (BP), the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) File Delivery Protocol (CFDP), and many others including the Contact Graph Routing (CGR) DTN routing system. While DTN offers the capability to tolerate disruption and long signal propagation delays in transmission, without an appropriate routing protocol, no data can be delivered. CGR was built for space exploration networks with scheduled communication opportunities (typically based on trajectories and orbits), represented as a contact graph. Since CGR uses knowledge of future connectivity, the contact graph can grow rather large, and so efficient processing is desired. These enhancements allow CGR to scale to predicted NASA space network complexities and beyond. This software improves upon CGR by adopting an earliest-arrival-time cost metric and using the Dijkstra path selection algorithm. Moving to Dijkstra path selection also enables construction of an earliest- arrival-time tree for multicast routing. The enhancements have been rolled into ION 3.0 available on sourceforge.net.

Segui, John S.↗

Space vehicle field unit and ground station system

A field unit and ground station may use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and share a common architecture, where differences in functionality are governed by software. The field units and ground stations may be easy to deploy, relatively inexpensive, and be relatively easy to operate. A novel file system may be used where datagrams of a file may be stored across multiple drives and/or devices. The datagrams may be received out of order and reassembled at the receiving device.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

An Introduction to UNIX, Emacs, Latex, and Python

This document is designed to give a brief introduction to the UNIX Operating System, Emacs, Latex, and Python. Section 1 focuses on UNIX, and presents the basics of the file system, a variety of common commands, and a handful of slightly more in depth topics. Section 2 introduces Emacs and its somewhat unusual keyboard controls. In Section 3, the basics of creating a document in Latex are demonstrated. Finally, Section 4 provides the foundation needed to begin programming in Python.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Space vehicle field unit and ground station system

A field unit and ground station may use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and share a common architecture, where differences in functionality are governed by software. The field units and ground stations may be easy to deploy, relatively inexpensive, and be relatively easy to operate. A novel file system may be used where datagrams of a file may be stored across multiple drives and/or devices. The datagrams may be received out of order and reassembled at the receiving device.

Judd, Stephen↗

Problems in the long-term storage of data obtained from scientific space experiments

It is shown that long-term data storage systems can be achieved when the system which organizes and conducts the scientific space experiments is equipped with a specialized subsystem: the information filing system. Its main functions are described along with the necessity of stage-by-stage development and compatibility with the data processing systems. The requirements for long-term data storage media are discussed.

Zlotin, G. N.↗

OCTOKV: An Agile Network-Based Key-Value Storage System with Robust Load Orchestration

In this paper, we propose OctoKV, an innovative network-based key-value storage system. OctoKV addresses the repetitive address translation overhead associated with traditional key-value stores running on file systems on the client side. To mitigate this overhead, we implemented the key-value store on the server side using NVMe-oF and a user-level NVMe driver. In particular, we employed fine-grained resource monitoring and load balancing based on heuristics to optimize I/O performance. OctoKV is deployed on a Linux cluster with Intel SPDK. The extensive evaluation shows that OctoKV achieves lower I/O response times in comparison to traditional approaches where key-value stores run on the client side. Also, the proposed load balancing strategies efficiently enhance I/O response times by equally distributing the workload from overloaded cores to other cores.

Khan, Awais↗

McrEngine: A Scalable Checkpointing System Using Data-Aware Aggregation and Compression

High performance computing (HPC) systems use checkpoint-restart to tolerate failures. Typically, applications store their states in checkpoints on a parallel file system (PFS). As applications scale up, checkpoint-restart incurs high overheads due to contention for PFS resources. The high overheads force large-scale applications to reduce checkpoint frequency, which means more compute time is lost in the event of failure. We alleviate this problem through a scalable checkpoint-restart system, mcrEngine. McrEngine aggregates checkpoints from multiple application processes with knowledge of the data semantics available through widely-used I/O libraries, e.g., HDF5 and netCDF, and compresses them. Our novel scheme improves compressibility of checkpoints up to 115% over simple concatenation and compression. Our evaluation with large-scale application checkpoints show that mcrEngine reduces checkpointing overhead by up to 87% and restart overhead by up to 62% over a baseline with no aggregation or compression.

Islam, Tanzima Zerin↗

Expanding a Supercomputer Facility Using Modular Data Center Technology

With the expansion of high-end computing resources needed to support NASA's increasing demands for physics-based simulations, the facility housing Pleiades-the agency's largest supercomputer-recently reached its power and cooling capacity. In response, the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames Research Center undertook a prototype project that resulted in a new facility based on modular data center technology. The facility, a ~1000 square-foot module on a concrete pad with room for 16-18 compute racks, was completed in fall 2016 and an SGI computer system, named Electra, was deployed there in early 2017. Cooling is performed via an evaporative system built into the module, and preliminary experience shows a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of ~1.03. Electra achieved over a petaflop on the LINPACK benchmark, sufficient to rank number 96 on the November 2016 TOP500 list. The system consists of 1,152 InfiniBand-connected Intel Xeon Broadwell-based nodes. Its users access their files on a facility wide file system shared by all compute assets via Mellanox MetroX InfiniBand extenders, which connect the Electra fabric to Lustre routers InfiniBand fabric over fiber-optic links about 300 meters long. The prototype has exceeded expectations and is serving as a blueprint for future expansions.*†

Facility↗

Electra: A Modular-Based Expansion of NASA's Supercomputing Capability

NASA has increasingly relied on high-performance computing (HPC) re- sources for computational modeling, simulation, and data analysis to meet the science and engineering goals of its missions in space exploration, aeronautics, and Earth and space science. The NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, Calif., hosts NASA’s premier supercomputing resources, integral to achieving and enhancing the success of the agency’s missions. NAS provides a balanced environment, funded under the High-End Computing Capability (HECC) project, comprised of world-class supercomputers, including its flagship distributed-memory cluster, Pleiades; high-speed networking; and massive data storage facilities, along with multi-disciplinary support teams for user support, code porting and optimization, and large-scale data analysis and scientific visualization. However, as scientists have increased the fidelity of their simulations and engineers are conducting larger parameter-space studies, the requirements for supercomputing resources have been growing by leaps and bounds. With the facility housing the HECC systems reaching its power and cooling capacity, NAS undertook a prototype project to investigate an alternative approach for housing supercomputers. Modular supercomputing, or container-based computing, is an innovative concept for expanding NASA’s HPC capabilities. With modular supercomputing, additional containers—similar to portable storage pods—can be connected together as needed to accommodate the agency’s ever-increasing demand for computing resources. In addition, taking advantage of the local weather permits the use of cooling technologies that would additionally save energy and reduce annual water usage. The first stage of NASA’s Modular Supercomputing Facility (MSF) prototype, which resulted in a 1,000 square-foot module on a concrete pad with room for 16 compute racks, was completed in Fall 2016 and an SGI (now HPE) computer system, named Electra, was deployed there in early 2017. Cooling is performed via an evaporative system built into the module, and preliminary experience shows a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measurement of 1.03. Electra achieved over a petaflop on the LINPACK benchmark, sufficient to rank number 96 on the November 2016 TOP500 list [14]. The system consists of 1,152 InfiniBand-connected Intel Xeon Broadwell-based nodes. Its users access their files on a facility-wide file system shared by all HECC compute assets via Mellanox MetroX InfiniBand extenders, which connect the Electra fabric to Lustre routers in the primary facility over fiber-optic links about 900 feet long. The MSF prototype has exceeded expectations and is serving as a blueprint for future expansions. In the remainder of this chapter, we detail how modular data center technology can be used to expand an existing compute resource. We begin by describing NASA’s requirements for supercomputing and how resources were provided prior to the integration of the Electra module-based system.

Biswas, Rupak↗

Robo-line storage: Low latency, high capacity storage systems over geographically distributed networks

Rapid advances in high performance computing are making possible more complete and accurate computer-based modeling of complex physical phenomena, such as weather front interactions, dynamics of chemical reactions, numerical aerodynamic analysis of airframes, and ocean-land-atmosphere interactions. Many of these 'grand challenge' applications are as demanding of the underlying storage system, in terms of their capacity and bandwidth requirements, as they are on the computational power of the processor. A global view of the Earth's ocean chlorophyll and land vegetation requires over 2 terabytes of raw satellite image data. In this paper, we describe our planned research program in high capacity, high bandwidth storage systems. The project has four overall goals. First, we will examine new methods for high capacity storage systems, made possible by low cost, small form factor magnetic and optical tape systems. Second, access to the storage system will be low latency and high bandwidth. To achieve this, we must interleave data transfer at all levels of the storage system, including devices, controllers, servers, and communications links. Latency will be reduced by extensive caching throughout the storage hierarchy. Third, we will provide effective management of a storage hierarchy, extending the techniques already developed for the Log Structured File System. Finally, we will construct a protototype high capacity file server, suitable for use on the National Research and Education Network (NREN). Such research must be a Cornerstone of any coherent program in high performance computing and communications.

Katz, Randy H.↗

PLTTER user's guide

The PLTTER graphics system, which is part of CDDMS is discussed. CDDMS is a comprehensive system for data basing and subsequent plotting of data acquired during wind tunnel tests or from computational flow analyses. The PLTTER is a system which creates report-quality plots of data which is stored on a CDDMS data base. The Requests file system allows plot-controlling information to be arranged in the way which is most appropriate for any application. The PLTTER system features many capabilities which are especially useful when plotting wind tunnel data. The PLTTER offers a variety of page formats, different grid options and parametric curve fitting algorithms, and a powerful legend capability to identify relevant information about individual curves. One or more plots on a page can be suppressed if desired so that an established page format can be maintained. Final plot output may be standard Versatec plots, QMS Laser printer plots, or microfiche.

Barlow, A.↗