Online MPI trace compression using event flow graphs and wavelets

• Performance analysis of scientific parallel applications is essential to use High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructures efficiently. Nevertheless, collecting detailed data of large-scale parallel programs and long-running applications is infeasible due to the huge amount of performance information generated. Even though there are no technological constraints in storing Terabytes of performance data, the constant flushing of such data to disk introduces a massive overhead into the application that makes the performance measurements worthless. This paper explores the use of Event flow graphs together with wavelet analysis and EZW-encoding to provide MPI event traces that are orders of magnitude smaller while preserving accurate information on timestamped events. Our mechanism compresses the performance data online while the application runs, thus, reducing the pressure put on the I/O system due to buffer flushing. As a result, we achieve lower application perturbation, reduced performance data output, and the possibility to monitor longer application runs.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Event flow graphs

EZW coding

MPI performance monitoring

Trace compression

Wavelets

Application programs

Graphic methods

Wavelet analysis

Event-flow graph

Performance monitoring

Flow graphs

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)