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Transactional Memory for Unstructured Mesh Simulations

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Abstract

In this paper we study transactional memory (TM) as a new tool for threading codes in this new era of multi- and many-core computers. In particular, we investigate the features and study the applicability of transactional memory as an efficient and easy-to-use alternative for handling memory conflicts in unstructured mesh simulations that use shared memory. The software tool used for our preliminary analysis of this novel construct is IBM’s freely available Software Transactional Memory (STM) system. For our studies, we developed the BUSTM benchmark which is a test code with state-of-the-art unstructured-mesh bookkeeping. The numerical algorithms are simplified yet still exhibit most of the salient features of modern unstructured mesh methods. We apply STM to two frequently used algorithm types used in multi-physics codes with realistic 3-D meshes. Our computational experiments indicate a good fit between these application scenarios and the TM features.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank John Gyllenhaal and Scott Futral of Livermore Computing (LC) for numerous fruitful discussions on this subject and for support of this work, as well as to David Fox, also of LC, for facilitating all the runs on the (now retired) IBM Power5 system. The author also acknowledges past financial support from Rockwell International, Boeing, and Hypercomp, Inc. in developing the unstructured mesh bookkeeping used in the experiments, and from Icon Consulting and IBM in writing the BUSTM code.

The author also appreciates the many thoughtful and detailed comments of the referees, most of which contributed to an improved revised version.

A substantial part of this work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DEAC52-07NA27344 (LLNL-CONF-422888).

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  1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA, 94550, USA

    Barna L. Bihari

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  1. Barna L. Bihari
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Correspondence to Barna L. Bihari.

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Dedicated to the 70th Birthday of Professor Stan Osher.

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Bihari, B.L. Transactional Memory for Unstructured Mesh Simulations. J Sci Comput 54, 311–332 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10915-012-9643-2

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