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An open-source family of tools to reproduce MPI-based workloads in interconnection network simulators

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Abstract

Simulation is often used in order to evaluate the behavior and the performance of computing systems. Specifically, in the field of high-performance interconnection networks for HPC clusters the simulation has been extensively considered to verify and validate network operation models and to evaluate their performance. Nevertheless, experiments conducted to evaluate network performance using simulation tools should be fed with realistic network traffic from real benchmarks and/or applications. This approach has grown in popularity because it allows to evaluate the simulation model under realistic traffic situations. In this paper, we propose a family of tools for modeling realistic workloads which capture the behavior of MPI applications into self-related traces called VEF traces. The main novelty of this approach is that it replays the MPI collective operations with their corresponding messages, offering an MPI message-based task simulation framework. The proposed framework neither provides a network simulator nor depends on any specific simulation platform. Besides, this framework allows us to use the generated traces by any third-party network simulator working at message level.

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Notes

  1. Or several nodes for the case of parallel simulators.

  2. An MPI function can result in just one message injected in the network or several messages in the case of collective operations.

  3. VEF is an acronym formed by the original programmer names: Villar, Escudero and Francisco.

  4. Note that VEF traces do not support comments. The comments in the right side have been included here in order to facilitate the interpretation of the content of the trace.

  5. Note that Wait() models blocking receives and iRecv() models non-blocking receives, regardless the MPI function that generates the iRecv() or the Wait() record.

  6. Commonly, it is a NIC or a processing node, depending on the simulator implementation.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been jointly supported by the MINECO and European Commission (FEDER funds) under the project TIN2015-66972-C5-2-R, and by Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha under the Project PEII-2014-028-P. Francisco J. Andújar is also funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation MICINN under FPU grant AP2010-4680 and Jesus Escudero-Sahuquillo has been funded by the Spanish MINECO under the postdoctoral grant FPDI-2013-18787 until November 2015 and, from that date, he has been funded by the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) and the European Commission (FSE funds), with a contract for accessing the Spanish System of Science, Technology and Innovation, for the implementation of the UCLM research program (UCLM resolution date: 31/07/2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Systems Department, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, P.O.Box 02071, Albacete, Spain

    Francisco J. Andújar, Juan A. Villar, Francisco J. Alfaro & José L. Sánchez

  2. Department of Computing Engineering, Technical University of Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, P.O.Box 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Jesus Escudero-Sahuquillo

Authors
  1. Francisco J. Andújar
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  2. Juan A. Villar
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  3. Francisco J. Alfaro
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  4. José L. Sánchez
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  5. Jesus Escudero-Sahuquillo
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Correspondence to Juan A. Villar.

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Andújar, F.J., Villar, J.A., Alfaro, F.J. et al. An open-source family of tools to reproduce MPI-based workloads in interconnection network simulators. J Supercomput 72, 4601–4628 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-016-1757-0

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