Cirrus RSE Update

Andy Turner, EPCC
25 April 2018
a.turner@epcc.ed.ac.uk

Cirrus RSE Update

  • Supporting user requests: software installations, technical help, etc.
  • Comparative benchmarking across ARCHER and Tier2 systems
    • Initial focus on CPU-based systems
    • Synthetic benchmarks: HPC Challenge, parallel file system performance (MDS and bandwidth)
    • HPC application benchmarks: CASTEP, GROMACS, OpenSBLI (CFD)
  • Installation and configuration of ISV sofware and licences

Benchmarking

Initial results

https://github.com/ARCHER-CSE/archer-benchmarks

Initial white paper currently under review

Benchamrks

  • Applications:
    • CASTEP: Al Slab (medium) and DNA (large)
    • CP2K: Hybrid functional, LiH
    • GROMACS: Large biological system
    • OpenSBLI: Taylor-Green vortex
    • OASIS: Coupled Met Office UM and NEMO
  • Synthetic:
    • HPC Challenge (floating point, memory, interconnect)
    • benchio (parallel file system bandwidth)
    • mdtest (parallel file system metadata)

Systems Included

System Processor Memory Interconnect
ARCHER 12-core Xeon v2, 2.7 GHz 4 channel DDR3 Cray Aries
Cirrus@EPCC 18-core Xeon v4, 2.1 GHz 4 channel DDR4 FDR Hypercube
Thomas@MMMHub 12-core Xeon v4, 2.1 GHz 4 channel DDR4 OPA
Athena@HPC-Mid+ 14-core Xeon v4, 2.4 GHz 4 channel DDR4 EDR
CSD3@Cambridge 16-core Xeon Skylake, 2.6 GHz 6 channel DDR4 OPA
CASTEP: Al Slab (al3x3)
GROMACS: large
OpenSBLI: Taylor-Green Vortex

Future Work

  • Include non-CPU systems (GPGPU: JADE, CSD3-GPU; KNL: CSD3-KNL)
  • Include ML/DL benchmarks
  • Profile benchmarks to get better understanding of performance differences

Tier2 RSE Coordination

  • EPCC have initiated a regular series of meetings between Tier2 RSE teams and ARCHER CSE
  • Initial focus:
    • Sharing experiences and approaches
    • Sharing introductory HPC training material
  • Future plans:
    • Group involvement in RSE Leaders workshop submission for RSE2018
    • Sharing best practice and experience with DiRAC RSE group
    • Identifiy opportunities for cross-site collaborations
    • Face-to-face day-long workshop (potentially with DiRAC RSE group) for late 2018

Questions?