Past Events

Presenters: Gilad Shainer & Tong Liu (Mellanox Technologies), Joshua Mora (AMD), Jacob Liberman (Dell), Owen Brazell (Schlumberger)

Abstract: Schlumberger's ECLIPSE Reservoir Engineering software is a widely used oil and gas reservoir numerical simulation suite. Like many other High Performance Computing (HPC) applications, ECLIPSE runs in a complex ecosystem of hardware and software components. Maximizing ECLIPSE performance requires a deep understanding of how each component impacts the overall solution. However, as new hardware and software comes to market, design decisions are often based on assumptions or projections rather than empirical testing. This presentation removes the guesswork from cluster design for ECLIPSE by providing best practices for increased performance and productivity. It includes scalability testing, interconnect performance comparisons, job placement strategies, and power efficiency considerations. It also introduces an ongoing collaboration between Dell, AMD, and Mellanox dedicated to publishing timely application-specific best practices and performance data.

Presentations:

• Presentation (PDF)

Presenters: Gilad Shainer & Tong Liu (Mellanox Technologies), Joshua Mora (AMD), Jacob Liberman (Dell), John Michalakes (National Center for Atmospheric Research)

Abstract: The Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) Model is a fully functioning modeling system for atmospheric research and operational weather prediction communities. With an emphasis on efficiency, portability, maintainability, scalability and productivity, WRF has been successfully deployed over the years on a wide variety of HPC clustered compute nodes connected with high speed interconnects - currently the most used system architecture for high-performance computing. As such, understanding WRF dependency on the various clustering elements, such as the CPU, interconnects and the software libraries are crucial for enabling efficient predictions and high productivity. Our results identify WRF's communication-sensitive points and demonstrate WRF's dependency on high-speed networks and fast CPU to CPU communication. Both factors are critical to maintaining scalability and increasing productivity when adding cluster nodes. We conclude with specific recommendations for improving WRF performance, scalability, and productivity as measured in jobs per day. Because proprietary hardware and software can quickly erode cluster architecture's favorable economics, we will restrict our investigation to standards based hardware and open source software readily available to typical research institutions.

Presentations:

• Presentation (PDF)
• Conference Paper (PDF)

Presenters: Gilad Shainer (HPC Advisory Council chairman), Jennifer Koerv (AMD), Donnie Bell (Dell), Sharan Kalwani (GM), Lynn Lewis (Microsoft), Stan Posey (Panasas), Lee Porter (ParTec), Arend DittmerJoshua (Penguin Computing)

Abstract: The presentation introduces the HPC Advisory Council mission, activities and future plans.

Presentations:

• Presentation (PDF)

Presenters: Gilad Shainer (Mellanox), Tong Liu (Mellanox), Jacob Liberman (Dell), Jeff Layton (Dell), Onur Celebioglu (Dell), Scot A. Schultz (AMD), Joshua Mora (AMD), David Cownie (AMD)

Abstract: From concept to engineering, and from design to test and manufacturing, the automotive industry relies on powerful virtual development solutions. CFD and crash simulations are performed in an effort to secure quality and speed up the development process. The recent trends in cluster environments, such as multi-core CPUs and interconnect consolidation are changing the dynamics of clustered-based simulations. Software applications are being reshaped for higher parallelism, as well as hardware configurations for solving the new demands on scalability and efficiency. Both "productivity-aware" and "power-aware" have become metrics for new systems design and implementations. The system architecture needs to be capable of providing higher productivity for present and future simulations; while maintaining low power consumption. In this paper we cover best practices for achieving maximum productivity while sustaining or reducing power consumption on LS-DYNA simulations.

Presentations:

• Conference Paper (PDF)