NDLI: Characterizing the Performance of Big Memory on Blue Gene Linux

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Yoshii, K. Iskra, K. Naik, H. Beckmanm, P. Broekema, P.C.
Copyright Year	2009
Abstract	Efficient use of Linux for high-performance applications on Blue Gene/P (BG/P) compute nodes is challenging because of severe performance hits resulting from translation lookaside buffer (TLB) misses and a hard-to-program torus network DMA controller. To address these difficulties, we present the design and implementation of “Big Memory”— an alternative, transparent memory space for computational processes. Big Memory uses extremely large memory pages available on PowerPC CPUs to create a TLB-miss-free, flat memory area that can be used for application code and data and is easier to use for DMA operations. One of our singlenode memory benchmarks shows that the performance gap between regular PowerPC Linux with 4KB pages and IBM BG/P compute node kernel (CNK) is about 68% in the worst case. Big Memory narrows the worst case performance gap to just 0.04%. We verify this result on 1024 nodes of Blue Gene/P using the NAS Parallel Benchmarks and find the performance under Linux with Big Memory to fluctuate within 0.7% of CNK. Originally intended exclusively for compute node tasks, our new memory subsystem turns out to dramatically improve the performance of certain I/O node applications as well. We demonstrate this performance using the central processor of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope as an example.
Starting Page	65
Ending Page	72
File Size	287529
Page Count	8
File Format	PDF
ISBN	9781424449231
ISSN	15302016
DOI	10.1109/ICPPW.2009.35
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2009-09-22
Publisher Place	Austria
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Linux Kernel Computer networks Hardware Concurrent computing High performance computing Operating systems Computer architecture Computer science Radio astronomy LOFAR petascale Blue Gene OS kernel compute node I/O node memory performance TLB NAS Parallel Benchmarks
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Characterizing the Performance of Big Memory on Blue Gene Linux

Characterizing the Performance of Big Memory on Blue Gene Linux