Paul Messina

Bio: Paul Messina is an academic researcher from Argonne National Laboratory. The author has contributed to research in topics: Parallel processing (DSP implementation) & Mathematical software. The author has an hindex of 17, co-authored 57 publications receiving 2432 citations. Previous affiliations of Paul Messina include California Institute of Technology & University of Tennessee.

The International Exascale Software Project roadmap

Abstract: Over the last 20 years, the open-source community has provided more and more software on which the world’s high-performance computing systems depend for performance and productivity. The community has invested millions of dollars and years of effort to build key components. However, although the investments in these separate software elements have been tremendously valuable, a great deal of productivity has also been lost because of the lack of planning, coordination, and key integration of technologies necessary to make them work together smoothly and efficiently, both within individual petascale systems and between different systems. It seems clear that this completely uncoordinated development model will not provide the software needed to support the unprecedented parallelism required for peta/ exascale computation on millions of cores, or the flexibility required to exploit new hardware models and features, such as transactional memory, speculative execution, and graphics processing units. This report describes the work of the community to prepare for the challenges of exascale computing, ultimately combing their efforts in a coordinated International Exascale Software Project.

The Perfect Club Benchmarks: Effective Performance Evaluation of Supercomputers

Abstract: This report presents a methodology for measuring the performance of supercomputers. It includes 13 Fortran programs that total over 50,000 lines of source code. They represent applications in several areas of engi neering and scientific computing, and in many cases the codes are currently being used by computational re search and development groups. We also present the PERFECT Fortran standard, a set of guidelines that allow portability to several types of machines. Furthermore, we present some performance measures and a method ology for recording and sharing results among diverse users on different machines. The results presented in this paper should not be used to compare machines, except in a preliminary sense. Rather, they are presented to show how the methodology has been applied, and to encourage others to join us in this effort. The results should be regarded as the first step toward our objec tive, which is to develop a publicly accessible data base of performance information of this type.

Parallel Computing Works

Abstract: 1 Introduction 2 Technical Backdrop 3. A Methodology for Computation 4 Synchronous Applications I 5 Express and CrOS 6 Synchronous Applications II 7 Independent Parallelism 8 Full Matrix Algorithms 9 Loosely Synchronous Problems 10 DIME Programming Environment 11 Load Balancing and Optimization 12 Irregular LS Problems 13 Data Parallel C and Fortran 14 Asynchronous Applications 15 High-Level Asynchronous Software 16 The Zipcode Message-Passing System 17 MOVIE 18 Simulation and Analysis 20 Computational Science

TeraGrid: Analysis of organization, system architecture, and middleware enabling new types of applications

Abstract: The TeraGrid project has been supported through a variety of funding and in-kind con- tributions in addition to multiple grants from the National Science Foundation. State support has come from the states of California, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Institutional support has come from Carnegie Melon University, Indiana Uni- versity, Purdue University, University of California-San Diego, University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Pittsburgh, the University of North Carolina, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas. Cor- porate support has come from Cray, Dell, IBM, Lilly Endowment, Qwest Communica- tions, and Sun Microsystems. Several hundred staff members from partner institutions contribute to the TeraGrid facility.

Architectural requirements of parallel scientific applications with explicit communication

Abstract: This paper studies the behavior of scientific applications running on distributed memory parallel computers. Our goal is to quantify the floating point, memory, I/O and communication requirements of highly parallel scientific applications that perform explicit communication. In addition to quantifying these requirements for fixed problem sizes and numbers of processors, we develop analytical models for the effects of changing the problem size and the degree of parallelism for several of the applications. We use the results to evaluate the trade-offs in the design of multicomputer architectures.

XSEDE: Accelerating Scientific Discovery

Abstract: Computing in science and engineering is now ubiquitous: digital technologies underpin, accelerate, and enable new, even transformational, research in all domains. Access to an array of integrated and well-supported high-end digital services is critical for the advancement of knowledge. Driven by community needs, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) project substantially enhances the productivity of a growing community of scholars, researchers, and engineers (collectively referred to as "scientists"' throughout this article) through access to advanced digital services that support open research. XSEDE's integrated, comprehensive suite of advanced digital services federates with other high-end facilities and with campus-based resources, serving as the foundation for a national e-science infrastructure ecosystem. XSEDE's e-science infrastructure has tremendous potential for enabling new advancements in research and education. XSEDE's vision is a world of digitally enabled scholars, researchers, and engineers participating in multidisciplinary collaborations to tackle society's grand challenges.

The Nas Parallel Benchmarks

Abstract: A new set of benchmarks has been developed for the performance evaluation of highly parallel supercom puters. These consist of five "parallel kernel" bench marks and three "simulated application" benchmarks. Together they mimic the computation and data move ment characteristics of large-scale computational fluid dynamics applications. The principal distinguishing feature of these benchmarks is their "pencil and paper" specification-all details of these benchmarks are specified only algorithmically. In this way many of the difficulties associated with conventional bench- marking approaches on highly parallel systems are avoided.

Enabling New Flexibility in the SUNDIALS Suite of Nonlinear and Differential/Algebraic Equation Solvers.

Abstract: In recent years, the SUite of Nonlinear and DIfferential/ALgebraic equation Solvers (SUNDIALS) has been redesigned to better enable the use of application-specific and third-party algebraic solvers and data structures. Throughout this work, we have adhered to specific guiding principles that minimized the impact to current users while providing maximum flexibility for later evolution of solvers and data structures. The redesign was done through creation of new classes for linear and nonlinear solvers, enhancements to the vector class, and the creation of modern Fortran interfaces that leverage interoperability features of the Fortran 2003 standard. The vast majority of this work has been performed "behind-the-scenes," with minimal changes to the user interface and no reduction in solver capabilities or performance. However, these changes now allow advanced users to create highly customized solvers that exploit their problem structure, enabling SUNDIALS use on extreme-scale, heterogeneous computational architectures.

Parallel Computer Architecture: A Hardware/Software Approach

Abstract: The most exciting development in parallel computer architecture is the convergence of traditionally disparate approaches on a common machine structure. This book explains the forces behind this convergence of shared-memory, message-passing, data parallel, and data-driven computing architectures. It then examines the design issues that are critical to all parallel architecture across the full range of modern design, covering data access, communication performance, coordination of cooperative work, and correct implementation of useful semantics. It not only describes the hardware and software techniques for addressing each of these issues but also explores how these techniques interact in the same system. Examining architecture from an application-driven perspective, it provides comprehensive discussions of parallel programming for high performance and of workload-driven evaluation, based on understanding hardware-software interactions. * synthesizes a decade of research and development for practicing engineers, graduate students, and researchers in parallel computer architecture, system software, and applications development * presents in-depth application case studies from computer graphics, computational science and engineering, and data mining to demonstrate sound quantitative evaluation of design trade-offs * describes the process of programming for performance, including both the architecture-independent and architecture-dependent aspects, with examples and case-studies * illustrates bus-based and network-based parallel systems with case studies of more than a dozen important commercial designs Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Parallel Programs 3 Programming for Performance 4 Workload-Driven Evaluation 5 Shared Memory Multiprocessors 6 Snoop-based Multiprocessor Design 7 Scalable Multiprocessors 8 Directory-based Cache Coherence 9 Hardware-Software Tradeoffs 10 Interconnection Network Design 11 Latency Tolerance 12 Future Directions APPENDIX A Parallel Benchmark Suites