4th VI-HPS Tuning Workshop

Universität Bremen
9-11 September, 2009

Goals

This workshop:
  • gave an overview of the VI-HPS programming tools suite
  • explained the functionality of individual tools, and how to use them effectively
  • offered hands-on experience and expert assistance using the tools
Prof. Allen D. Malony from the University of Oregon, and one of the principals behind the TAU performance tools and POINT project, was a special guest presenter.

The workshop was held in English and run from 09:00 to 17:30 each day, with breaks for lunch and refreshments (sponsored by SGI).

Wed 9 Sep
08:30 (registration & laptop set-up)
09:00 Welcome & Introduction to VI-HPS [Wylie, JSC]
  • Building and running NPB-MPI-BT
    • 09:30 Introduction to performance engineering [Malony, U.Oregon]
    10:15 Marmot correctness checking tool [Hilbrich, TUD-ZIH]
  • Marmot hands-on tutorial exercises
    • 10:45 (break)
    11:15 TAU performance analysis toolset [Malony, U.Oregon]
  • TAU hands-on tutorial exercises
    • 12:30 (lunch)
    13:30 Scalasca performance analysis toolset [Wylie, JSC]
  • Scalasca hands-on tutorial exercises
  • Scalasca case studies
    • 14:45 (break)
    15:15 Vampir performance analysis toolset [Doleschal, TUD-ZIH]
  • Vampir hands-on tutorial exercises
    • 16:30 Review of day and schedule for rest of workshop.
    Individual preparation of participants' own codes and further exercises.
    17:30 (adjourn)
    Thu 10 Sep
    09:00 Scalasca hands-on with participants' own code(s) [Geimer & Wylie, JSC]
  • Recap and review of local installation
  • Advanced use of the Scalasca toolset
    • 12:30 (lunch)
    13:30 Marmot/Vampir hands-on with participants' own codes [Hilbrich & Doleschal, TUD-ZIH]
  • Recap and review of local installation
  • Advanced use of Marmot & Vampir
    • 17:00 Review of day and schedule for tomorrow
    17:30 (adjourn)
    Fri 11 Sep
    09:00 Coaching to apply tools to check, analyze & tune participants' own code(s). Additional presentations covering in-depth and advanced tool use (scheduled according to demand).
    12:00 (lunch)
    14:30 Review of workshop and participants' experiences with tools
    15:00 (adjourn or continue with work to 17:30)

    Additional presentations

    Classroom capacity was limited, therefore priority was given to applicants with codes already running on the workshop computer systems, and those bringing codes from similar systems to work on. Participants were therefore encouraged to prepare their own MPI, OpenMP and hybrid OpenMP/MPI parallel application code(s) for analysis.

    Participants used their own notebook computers for the workshop: power and network connections were provided. The first day tutorial used a Live-DVD for hands-on exercises: alternatives were arranged for those who didn't have access to an x86-compatible notebook computer with DVD drive.

    VI-HPS Tools

    • MARMOT is a free correctness checking tool for MPI programs developed by TUD-ZIH and HLRS.
    • PAPI is a free library interfacing to hardware performance counters developed by UTK-ICL, used by Scalasca, VampirTrace, and other tools.
    • Scalasca is an open-source toolset developed by JSC that can be used to analyze the performance behaviour of parallel applications and automatically identify inefficiencies.
    • Vampir is a commercial framework and graphical analysis tool developed by TUD-ZIH to display and analyze trace files.
    • VampirTrace is an open-source library for generating event trace files which can be analyzed and visualized by Vampir.

    Additional POINT Tools

    • PerfSuite is a free collection of tools, utilities and libraries for software performance analysis from NCSA.
    • TAU is a free toolkit for parallel profiling, code analysis and performance visualization and exploration developed by the University of Oregon.

    Hardware and Software Platforms

    The VI-HPS tools support and are installed on a wide variety of HPC platforms, including:

    Further information and registration

    https://www.hlrn.de/home/view/NewsCenter/VIHPSWorkshop2009?section=en