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At least 325 records · Page 18

A Case for Application Oblivious Energy-Efficient MPI Runtime

Power has become the major impediment in designing large scale high-end systems. Message Passing Interface (MPI) is the {\em de facto} communication interface used as the back-end for designing applications, programming models and runtime for these systems. Slack --- the time spent by an MPI process in a single MPI call --- provides a potential for energy and power savings, if an appropriate power reduction technique such as core-idling/Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) can be applied without perturbing application's execution time. Existing techniques that exploit slack for power savings assume that application behavior repeats across iterations/executions. However, an increasing use of adaptive, data-dependent workloads combined with system factors (OS noise, congestion) makes this assumption invalid. This paper proposes and implements Energy Aware MPI (EAM) --- an application-oblivious energy-efficient MPI runtime. EAM uses a combination of communication models of common MPI primitives (point-to-point, collective, progress, blocking/non-blocking) and an online observation of slack for maximizing energy efficiency. Each power lever incurs time overhead, which must be amortized over slack to minimize degradation. When predicted communication time exceeds a lever overhead, the lever is used {\em as soon as possible} --- to maximize energy efficiency. When mis-prediction occurs, the lever(s) are used automatically at specific intervals for amortization. We implement EAM using MVAPICH2 and evaluate it on ten applications using up to 4096 processes. Our performance evaluation on an InfiniBand cluster indicates that EAM can reduce energy consumption by 5--41\% in comparison to the default approach, with negligible (less than 4\% in all cases) performance loss.

Venkatesh, Akshay↗

Safe and Robust Binary Classification and Fault Detection Using Reinforcement Learning

In this paper, we propose a learning-based method utilizing the Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) algorithm to train a binary Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. This classifier is designed to identify valid input spaces in high-dimensional, highly constrained systems while minimizing the total runtime of offline simulations. The simulations adapt their runtime based on the likelihood that a given training input will be informative to the classifier. Furthermore, we introduce a method for using the trained SAC model to predict whether a desired system input is likely to violate constraints, along with a technique to adjust the input as necessary. Additionally, we explore the potential of this model to detect faults or adversarial attacks within the system. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated through various simulations of challenging classification problems and a constrained quadrotor model.

Netter, Josh [Georgia Institute of Technology, Atl↗

TECA: Petascale pattern recognition for climate science

Climate Change is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. Climate simulations provide us with a unique opportunity to examine effects of anthropogenic emissions. Highresolution climate simulations produce “Big Data”: contemporary climate archives are ≈ 5PB in size and we expect future archives to measure on the order of Exa-Bytes. In this work, we present the successful application of TECA (Toolkit for Extreme Climate Analysis) framework, for extracting extreme weather patterns such as Tropical Cyclones, Atmospheric Rivers and Extra-Tropical Cyclones from TB-sized simulation datasets. TECA has been run at full-scale on Cray XE6 and IBM BG/Q systems, and has reduced the runtime for pattern detection tasks from years to hours. TECA has been utilized to evaluate the performance of various computational models in reproducing the statistics of extreme weather events, and for characterizing the change in frequency of storm systems in the future.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

TBAA20: Task-Based Algorithms and Applications

The new challenges posed by Exascale system architectures have resulted in difficulty achieving a desired scalability using traditional distributed ­memory runtimes. Task­-based programming models show promise in addressing these challenges, providing application developers with a productive and performant approach to programming on next generation systems. Empirical studies show that task-based models can overcome load ­balancing issues that are inherent to traditional distributed ­memory runtimes, and that task-­based runtimes perform comparably to those systems when balanced. This panel is designed to explore the advantages of task-­based programming models on modern and future HPC systems from an industry, university, and national lab perspective. It aims at gathering application experts and proponents of these models to present concrete and practical examples of using task­-based runtimes to overcome the challenges posed by Exascale system architectures. This report describes the objectives, activities, and outcomes of the panel TBAA: Task­-Based Algorithms and Applications which was held at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC 20) on November 18, 2020.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Runtime Verification Logics A Language Design Perspective

Runtime Verification is a light-weight approach to systems verification, where actual executions of a system are processed and analyzed using rigorous techniques. In this paper we shall narrow the term’s definition to represent the commonly studied variant consisting of verifying that a single system execution conforms to a specification written in a formal specification language. Runtime verification (in this sense) can be used for writing test oracles during testing when the system is too complex for full formal verification, or it can be used during deployment of the system as part of a fault protection strategy, where corrective actions may be taken in case the specification is violated. Specification languages for runtime verification appear to differ from for example temporal logics applied in model checking, in part due to the focus on monitoring of events that carry data, and specifically due to the desire to relate data values existing at different time points, resulting in new challenges in both the complexity of the monitoring approach and the expressiveness of languages. Over the recent years, numerous runtime verification specification languages have emerged, each with its different features and levels of expressiveness and usability. This paper presents an overview and a discussion of this design space.

Reger, Giles↗

Runtime Verification - 17 Years Later

Runtime verification is the discipline of analyzing program executions using rigorous methods. The discipline covers such topics as specification-based monitoring, where single executions are checked against formal specifications; predictive runtime analysis, where properties about a system are predicted/inferred from single (good) executions; specification mining from execution traces; visualization of execution traces; and to be fully general: computation of any interesting information from execution traces. Finally, runtime verification also includes fault protection, where monitors actively protect a running system against errors. The paper is written as a response to the ‘Test of Time Award’ attributed to the authors for their 2001 paper [45]. The present paper provides a brief overview of what lead to that paper, what has happened since, and some perspectives on the future of the field.

Rosu, Grigore↗

Ada and cyclic runtime scheduling

An important issue that must be faced while introducing Ada into the real time world is efficient and prodictable runtime behavior. One of the most effective methods employed during the traditional design of a real time system is the cyclic executive. The role cyclic scheduling might play in an Ada application in terms of currently available implementations and in terms of implementations that might be developed especially to support real time system development is examined. The cyclic executive solves many of the problems faced by real time designers, resulting in a system for which it is relatively easy to achieve approporiate timing behavior. Unfortunately a cyclic executive carries with it a very high maintenance penalty over the lifetime of the software that is schedules. Additionally, these cyclic systems tend to be quite fragil when any aspect of the system changes. The findings are presented of an ongoing SofTech investigation into Ada methods for real time system development. The topics covered include a description of the costs involved in using cyclic schedulers, the sources of these costs, and measures for future systems to avoid these costs without giving up the runtime performance of a cyclic system.

Hood, Philip E.↗

BiblioTech

BiblioTech computer program originally developed to capture information about continuing advanced technological developments in fields applicable to spacecraft systems and subsystems in data-base files called "libraries." No element of design restricts BiblioTech from addressing other technological fields beyond specialized area of spacecraft technology. Also contains contact information to enable user to gain more information about technologies in library. Available only as executable code for use with 4th DIMENSION Runtime on Macintosh computers running System 6.0.7 or later.

Mittman, David S.↗

Accelerating the Global Arrays ComEx Runtime using Multiple Progress Ranks

Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) models are part of system software that are being designed to support communication runtime for exascale applications. Suitability of using MPI as a scalable PGAS communication subsystem has been shown as a viable option due to its standardization and higher performance. We used MPI two-sided semantics with a combination of automatic and user defined splitting of MPI communicators to achieve asynchronous progress. Our implementation can make use of multiple asynchronous progress ranks (PR) per node that can be mapped to the computing architecture of a node in a distributed cluster. We are able to show significant speed up of over 2.0X and scaling of communication bound computational chemistry application over 1024 nodes of state- of-the-art HPC clusters. Our results show that while running a communication bound application workload on a certain number of cluster nodes, a use of optimum number of ranks dedicated for communication may be used to achieve asynchronous communication progress and obtain highest performance.

PGAS, global-arrays, NWCHEM, NWChemEx, HPC, GPGPU↗

XACC: a system-level software infrastructure for heterogeneous quantum–classical computing

Quantum programming techniques and software have advanced significantly over the past five years, with a majority focusing on high-level language frameworks targeting remote REST library APIs. As quantum computing architectures advance and become more widely available, lower-level, system software infrastructures will be needed to enable tighter, co-processor programming and access models. In this work, we present XACC, a system-level software infrastructure for quantum–classical computing that promotes a service-oriented architecture to expose interfaces for core quantum programming, compilation, and execution tasks. Additionally, we detail XACC's interfaces, their interactions, and its implementation as a hardware-agnostic framework for both near-term and future quantum–classical architectures. We provide concrete examples demonstrating the utility of this framework with paradigmatic tasks. Our approach lays the foundation for the development of compilers, associated runtimes, and low-level system tools tightly integrating quantum and classical workflows.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Embedding Differential Dynamic Logic in PVS

Runtime assurance is a control framework where a complex controller operates under the observation of a monitor. If the monitor detects the controller exhibiting undesirable behavior, control is passed off to a trusted controller until a desirable state is regained. The runtime assurance architecture provides a layer of assurance to the system being controlled, but special care must be taken that the resulting overall system, consisting of the monitors and controllers, is behaving as intended. This talk aims to formally model and reason about runtime assurance-equipped systems as hybrid programs- which are models that consist of both discrete and continuous components. Using the verification tool Plaidypvs, safety properties of some examples involving RTA architectures is shown.

Formal Verification↗

Revisiting Parallel Cyclic Reduction and Parallel Prefix-Based Algorithms for Block Tridiagonal System of Equations

Simulations that require solutions of block tridiagonal systems of equations rely on fast parallel solvers for runtime efficiency. Leading parallel solvers that are highly effective for general systems of equations, dense or sparse, are limited in scalability when applied to block tridiagonal systems. This paper presents scalability results as well as detailed analyses of two parallel solvers that exploit the special structure of block tridiagonal matrices to deliver superior performance, often by orders of magnitude. A rigorous analysis of their relative parallel runtimes is shown to reveal the existence of a critical block size that separates the parameter space spanned by the number of block rows, the block size and the processor count, into distinct regions that favor one or the other of the two solvers. Dependence of this critical block size on the above parameters as well as on machine-specific constants is established. These formal insights are supported by empirical results on up to 2,048 cores of a Cray XT4 system. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest reported scalability for parallel block tridiagonal solvers to date.

Seal, Sudip K↗

A study of the viability of exploiting memory content similarity to improve resilience to memory errors

Building the next-generation of extreme-scale distributed systems will require overcoming several challenges related to system resilience. As the number of processors in these systems grow, the failure rate increases proportionally. One of the most common sources of failure in large-scale systems is memory. In this paper, we propose a novel runtime for transparently exploiting memory content similarity to improve system resilience by reducing the rate at which memory errors lead to node failure. We evaluate the viability of this approach by examining memory snapshots collected from eight high-performance computing (HPC) applications and two important HPC operating systems. Based on the characteristics of the similarity uncovered, we conclude that our proposed approach shows promise for addressing system resilience in large-scale systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Towards Real-Time, On-Board, Hardware-Supported Sensor and Software Health Management for Unmanned Aerial Systems

For unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to be successfully deployed and integrated within the national airspace, it is imperative that they possess the capability to effectively complete their missions without compromising the safety of other aircraft, as well as persons and property on the ground. This necessity creates a natural requirement for UAS that can respond to uncertain environmental conditions and emergent failures in real-time, with robustness and resilience close enough to those of manned systems. We introduce a system that meets this requirement with the design of a real-time onboard system health management (SHM) capability to continuously monitor sensors, software, and hardware components. This system can detect and diagnose failures and violations of safety or performance rules during the flight of a UAS. Our approach to SHM is three-pronged, providing: (1) real-time monitoring of sensor and software signals; (2) signal analysis, preprocessing, and advanced on-the-fly temporal and Bayesian probabilistic fault diagnosis; and (3) an unobtrusive, lightweight, read-only, low-power realization using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) that avoids overburdening limited computing resources or costly re-certification of flight software. We call this approach rt-R2U2, a name derived from its requirements. Our implementation provides a novel approach of combining modular building blocks, integrating responsive runtime monitoring of temporal logic system safety requirements with model-based diagnosis and Bayesian network-based probabilistic analysis. We demonstrate this approach using actual flight data from the NASA Swift UAS.

Unmanned Aerial System↗

Towards Real-time, On-board, Hardware-Supported Sensor and Software Health Management for Unmanned Aerial Systems

Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) can only be deployed if they can effectively complete their missions and respond to failures and uncertain environmental conditions while maintaining safety with respect to other aircraft as well as humans and property on the ground. In this paper, we design a real-time, on-board system health management (SHM) capability to continuously monitor sensors, software, and hardware components for detection and diagnosis of failures and violations of safety or performance rules during the flight of a UAS. Our approach to SHM is three-pronged, providing: (1) real-time monitoring of sensor and/or software signals; (2) signal analysis, preprocessing, and advanced on the- fly temporal and Bayesian probabilistic fault diagnosis; (3) an unobtrusive, lightweight, read-only, low-power realization using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) that avoids overburdening limited computing resources or costly re-certification of flight software due to instrumentation. Our implementation provides a novel approach of combining modular building blocks, integrating responsive runtime monitoring of temporal logic system safety requirements with model-based diagnosis and Bayesian network-based probabilistic analysis. We demonstrate this approach using actual data from the NASA Swift UAS, an experimental all-electric aircraft.

System & Software Health Management↗

Launch Complex 39B, SWMU 009, 2023 Performance Monitoring and Air Sparge Expansion Construction Completion Report, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

The 2023 Performance Monitoring and Construction Completion Report (PM-CCR) presents the findings, observations, and results for Air Sparging (AS) operations and expansion activities, as well as sitewide groundwater monitoring for Launch Complex 39B (LC39B), Solid Waste Management Unit (SWMU) 009, at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida. The reporting period for activities covered under this PM-CCR is from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023. At LC39B, AS operations began in 2017 in the area west of the launch pad, in the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank area located northwest of the launch pad, and in an area outside of the perimeter fence to protect nearby Outstanding Florida Waters (OFW). The LC39B AS system was installed with 279 AS wells to depths ranging from 23 to 60 feet below land surface (bls), including the sump, correlating to top of screen depths ranging from 20 to 57 feet bls. In December 2022, a total of 22 AS wells were abandoned to support launch pad crane operations, and in November 2023, the system was expanded with five additional AS wells installed to 13 or 17 feet bls near the LOX tank. The remedial objective of the LC39B AS Interim Measure (IM) is to actively decrease concentrations of contaminants of concern (COCs) in groundwater, specifically trichloroethene (TCE), cis-1,2-Dichloroethene (cDCE), and vinyl chloride (VC), to less than their respective Natural Attenuation Default Concentrations (NADCs), so LC39B can transition into a Long-Term Monitoring (LTM) program. This PM-CCR presents the following information for LC39B: • AS system operations and maintenance (O&M) (Year 7 of operation) from January 2023 to December 2023, to include AS trailer relocation in March 2023 and subsequent replacement and re-start in June 2023. • Construction completion details for AS system expansion, which included installation of five new AS wells and one new monitoring well in November 2023. As part of expansion activities, soil samples were also collected for petroleum analysis; no exceedances were identified, and no further investigation for petroleum is warranted. • Performance monitoring results for groundwater sampling events conducted in May/June 2023 (30 wells) and November 2023 (31 wells) in the AS IM area and in the Low Concentration Plume (LCP) areas located north and east of the launch pad for volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis. • Sampling results for one monitoring well, LOX-IW0012S, which is sampled for aluminum on an annual basis (May/June 2023). This well was resampled in November 2023 for both total and dissolved aluminum. Due to a communication error with the laboratory, the May/June 2023 sample was analyzed for total aluminum only. • Groundwater sampling results for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) collected from seven monitoring wells during the May/June 2023 event to further investigate the Former Sewage Treatment Plant #6 and Percolation Pond area, west of the launch pad. O&M and performance monitoring results show that the AS system at LC39B is operating as designed and meeting performance criteria. Overall runtime was 45 percent (%) during the reporting period (January to December), but the operational runtime was 78% during the timeframe when the system could run (June to December). The most significant downtime contributor was post-launch crane operations following the Artemis launch on November 16, 2022, which lasted until June 2023. During that timeframe, the AS trailer at LC39B was relocated to another KSC remediation site (Wilson Corners) and was subsequently replaced with the AS trailer from the Paint & Oil Locker (POL) remediation site at KSC to resume AS system operations. Performance monitoring results in the AS IM and LCP areas continue to show reduction in COC concentrations over time when compared to baseline levels. In 2023, only one monitoring well (MW0048) detected a COC exceeding its NADC (VC at 740 micrograms per liter [µg/L]), which marks the baseline result for this new well installed during system expansion. Across the rest of the site, VC concentrations have declined or remained stable during the 2023 sampling events. Excluding MW0048, the highest VC result in 2023 was during the May/June sampling event with a concentration of 63 µg/L at MW0032, which is located near MW0048 and the AS expansion area by the LOX tank. TCE was detected in select monitoring wells in the IM area in 2023, but only two locations exceeded the State of Florida Groundwater Cleanup Target Level (GCTL): MW0032 (21 µg/L in May/June 2023 and 9.1 µg/L in November 2023) and MW0036 (5.0 µg/L in November 2023). MW0036 is also located near the LOX tank, on the north side, where the AS system is still operational (Zone Z4). cDCE and trans-1,2-dichloroethene concentrations were less than laboratory method detection limits or their respective GCTLs in all wells sampled in 2023. Near the OFW located northwest of the launch complex, all COC concentrations were less than laboratory method detection limits from monitoring wells (MW0039, MW0040, and LOXTA0002S) sampled in 2023. Aluminum results from LOX-IW0012S, which has been sampled routinely since 2006, detected a total aluminum concentration of 3,900 µg/L during the May/June 2023 sampling event. Results from the November 2023 event detected 5,700 µg/L for total aluminum and 5,500 µg/L for dissolved aluminum. These concentrations slightly decreased from the previous year but remain relatively consistent with historical detections. Aluminum will continue to be sampled on an annual basis at this well as results still exceed the GCTL of 200 µg/L and the Upper Limit of the KSC Background Concentration of 280 µg/L. PFAS results detected nine different PFAS compounds (out of 32 analyzed) from seven wells sampled. Two PFAS compounds, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), currently have FDEP Provisional GCTLs of 70 nanograms per liter (ng/L). All seven samples collected resulted in concentrations less than the FDEP Provisional GCTLs for both PFAS compounds; no exceedances were observed. PFOS and PFOA also have assigned United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) of 4 nanograms per liter (ng/L). None of the PFOS results exceeded the USEPA MCLs. PFOA was detected in two samples above the USEPA MCL at concentrations of 5.8 ng/L (ECS-IW0009I) and 5.5 ng/L (ECS-IW0009S). Three other PFAS compounds, perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluoro-n-nonanoic acid (PFNA), and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (GenX), currently have USEPA MCLs of 10 ng/L. PFHxS, PFNA, and GenX were not detected at concentrations greater than their respective USEPA MCLs in any of the seven wells. PFAS compounds without FDEP Provisional GCTLs or USEPA MCLs were screened against USEPA RSLs. No other detections exceeded their respective USEPA RSLs. Additional PFAS sampling will be conducted as part of a future PFAS Site Assessment. Based on O&M activities and performance monitoring, the following is recommended for LC39B: • Continue with Year 8 AS system operation within Zone Z4, which includes the AS expansion area. Zone Z3, which has been off since 2018, should remain off as no rebound has been observed. Zones Z1 and Z2, which were turned off at the end of 2022, will remain shut down as monitoring well results have consistently been below GCTLs or have low-level detections with stable or decreasing trends (Meeting Minute 2402-M10, Decision 2402-D30). • Continue with performance monitoring in 2024 with the same monitoring well network as 2023, except with the addition of MW0048 in both semi-annual events. Baseline concentrations for this well were collected during the November 2023 performance monitoring event. Semi-annual sampling should be planned for the May 2024 and November 2024 timeframes (Meeting Minute 2402-M10, Decision 2402-D31). • Continue sampling monitoring well, LOX-IW0012S, for aluminum (total and dissolved) on an annual basis in May 2024. It is also recommended to re-develop this well prior to the next sampling event (Meeting Minute 2402-M10, Decision 2402-D32). The above recommendations for LC39B were presented at the February 2024 KSCRT Meeting, with Team consensus reached on the path forward. The contents of this PM-CCR were also presented at this meeting.

Deborah M Wilson↗

Is Knowledge about Running Applications Helping Improve Runtime Prediction of HPC Jobs?

High-performance computing systems rely upon scheduling algorithms to achieve high utilization. These schedulers rely upon user estimates of job resource requirements, such as runtime, to determine optimal scheduling of incoming jobs. These user estimates, however, are prone to error. To mitigate this error, significant research has been directed at providing better estimates of job runtime, usually employing machine learning techniques. These techniques are dependent upon the input features selected. Among the possible features is the primary application used by the job. In a survey of more than 20 papers directed at improving runtime prediction, only four included primary application as an input feature. We focus this investigation specifically on the value of adding primary application as an input feature, and find that it does improve model performance, especially for jobs with longer runtimes, though this improvement varies based on the application used. We recommend further research to determine the cause of this variability as well as an optimal strategy for employing a mixture of models both including and not including primary application as a feature.

MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Is Knowledge About Running Applications Helping Improve Runtime Prediction of HPC Jobs?

High-performance computing systems rely upon scheduling algorithms to achieve high utilization. These schedulers rely upon user estimates of job resource requirements, such as runtime, to determine optimal scheduling of incoming jobs. These user estimates, however, are prone to error. To mitigate this error, significant research has been directed at providing better estimates of job runtime, usually employing machine learning techniques. These techniques are dependent upon the input features selected. Among the possible features is the primary application used by the job. In a survey of more than 20 papers directed at improving runtime prediction, only four included primary application as an input feature. We focus this investigation specifically on the value of adding primary application as an input feature, and find that it does improve model performance, especially for jobs with longer runtimes, though this improvement varies based on the application used. We recommend further research to determine the cause of this variability as well as an optimal strategy for employing a mixture of models both including and not including primary application as a feature.

feature selection↗