Post on 03-Jan-2016
description
What’s a Supercomputer Good for Anyway?
Ruth Poole – IBM Software Engineer Blue Gene Control System
Overview
• Applications– Current Customers– Future Directions
• Architecture Foundations
• Hardware Comparisons
• Trends
Application Categories – Current Customers
• Government and University– Nuclear stockpile stewardship– Other research
• Computational Fluid Dynamics – CFD– Aerodynamics – aerospace, automotive, engine design– Weather/climate modeling
• Physics / Astronomy– QCD – Quantum Chromodynamics– Flash – simulate supernovae explosions– LOFAR – radio telescope consisting of many small
receivers• Biomedical
– Computational chemistry– Drug discovery– DNA sequencing and search
• Others– Finance– Oil / Gas exploration
NAMD - NAnoscale Molecular Dynamics
• Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group (TCB) and Parallel Programming Laboratory (PPL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Simulate systems of millions of atoms• Use to build models of cellular processes• Current goal: model one micro-second of cell
behavior
Blue Brain - EPFL
• EPFL-IBM joint research project to create a cellular level, software replica of the Neocortical Column
• Phase 1, rat brain with 10,000 neuron Neocortical Column with automatically generated, biologically accurate neurons completed November 26, 2007
• Study its function and dysfunction and to lay the foundation for large scale modeling of the mammalian brain
Materials Science
• Blue Waters IBM / NSF collaboration project for open research
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign planned for 2011
• Design a substance from atoms that meets specific parameters for conductivity and strength
Robot Surgeons
• Laser prostate surgery on a dog• Real-time data from MRI used to guide laser• Computer in Austin, Dog in Houston• TACC Lonestar, #38 on Top500.org
Simulated Plants
• Computer model that mimics the process of evolution.
• First model to simulate every step of the photosynthetic process.
• Researchers have built a better plant, one that produces more leaves and fruit without needing extra fertilizer.
• University of Illinois; Photo by Don Hamerman
Background and Definitions
• Processors (Nodes)– Multicore – more than one processor on a chip, dual = 2,
quad = 4, etc.
– Hybrid – a main processor with one or more secondary processors for specific computations (aka. accelerator)
• “Macro” Architecture– Massively Parallel Processing system (MPP) –
Supercomputer with nodes, memory, networking tightly integrated
– Cluster – A network of commodity machines connected by a network
• Interconnect (between nodes)– Crossbar – all nodes connected through crossbar
– Mesh/Torus – nodes connected in a grid
– Tree – nodes connected in a (fat) tree
Hardware Comparisons
• IBM Road Runner
• IBM Blue Gene L/P
• Sun Constellation
• Cray XT5/h
• Cluster Systems
• Top500.org
IBM Roadrunner
• # 1 – 1 PetaFlop• Hybrid blades• 1-AMD Dual-core Opteron 1.8 GHz / 2-PowerXCell 8i
3.2 Ghz • 6,948 / 12,960 processors• Infiniband and Gigabit Ethernet• Los Alamos
“I know how to make 4 horses pull a cart - I don't know how to make 1024 chickens do it.”
Enrico Clementi - former IBM fellow
IBM Blue Gene L/P
• # 2, 3, 6, 9, others – 478 TFlops / 450 TFlops• Large number of modest processors• PowerPC 440/450 – 700/850 Mhz• 212,992 / 163,840 cores• 3-D torus• Communication over the torus network• Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Argonne, NCAR,
others
Sun Constellation – Ranger
• # 4 – 326 TFlops• AMD Quad-core Opteron 2 GHz Blades• 62,976 cores• Full-Clos Infiniband• Texas Advanced Computing Center
Cray XT5
• “Adapt the system to the application”• Quad-Core AMD Opteron 2.1 GHz• 30,976 (XT4 - Oak Ridge National Lab, # 5 –
205 TFlops)• Cray SeaStar2 – 3-D Torus• XT5h – hybrid processors
– AMD Opteron– Configurable FPGA accelerator
• Oak Ridge (planned)
Clusters
• 400 of the Top500.org• Many different vendors, configurations• Low cost, commodity systems• More management tools becoming available• Slower communication between nodes
Trends• Multicore – more processors on a chip• Hybrid processors
– Accelerators for specific kinds of computation– More difficult to take advantage of
• “Greenness” – Green500.org• Liquid cooling – Cray XT5 planned for Oak Ridge• More tools and systems integration
– Blue Waters– Microsoft Windows HPC
• Deskside supercomputers?– IBM BG/S– Cray CX1
• Mainstream customers – not just for research anymore– Financial– Engineering
References
• Overview of Recent Supercomputers - 2007 Edition http://top500.org/2007_overview_recent_supercomputers
• Cray XT5 product brochure http://www.cray.com/Products/XT/Product/Specifications.aspx
• Sun Constellation system information http://www.sun.com/servers/hpc/sunconstellationsystem/
• IBM Journal of Research and Development, Volume 52, Number 1/2, 2008
• “TACC Supercomputer Performs Laser Cancer Surgery on Canine” HPCWire, May 27, 2008, Aaron Dubrow
• “Researchers successfully simulate photosynthesis and design a better leaf” News Bureau: University of Illinois at Urbana-Chapaign, November 2007, Diana Yates
• The Blue Brain Project http://bluebrain.epfl.ch• Blue Waters http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/BlueWaters/
Background and Definitions
• Architectural classes– SIMD – single instruction, multiple data
(vectorprocessors) – multiple processors in lock-step, each with its own set of data
– MIMD – multiple instruction, multiple data – the bulk of High Performance Computing (HPC) systems
• Memory– Shared – all nodes have access to same memory– Distributed – each node has its own memory– NUMA – non-uniform memory access – logically
shared, physically distributed
• Interconnect (between nodes)– Crossbar – all nodes connected through crossbar– Mesh/Torus – nodes connected in a grid– Tree – nodes connected in a (fat) tree