Implementing MPI on the BlueGene/L supercomputer

George Almási, Charles Archer, José G. Castanõs, C. Chris Erway, Philip Heidelberger, Xavier Martorell, José E. Moreira, Kurt Pinnow, Joe Ratterman, Nils Smeds, Burkhard Steinmacher-burow, William Gropp, Brian Toonen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

The BlueGene/L supercomputer will consist of 65,536 dual-processor compute nodes interconnected by two high-speed networks: a three-dimensional torus network and a tree topology network. Each compute node can only address its own local memory, making message passing the natural programming model for BlueGene/L. In this paper we present our implementation of MPI for BlueGene/L. In particular, we discuss how we leveraged the architectural features of BlueGene/L to arrive at an efficient implementation of MPI in this machine. We validate our approach by comparing MPI performance against the hardware limits and also the relative performance of the different modes of operation of BlueGene/L. We show that dedicating one of the processors of a node to communication functions greatly improves the bandwidth achieved by MPI operation, whereas running two MPI tasks per compute node can have a positive impact on application performance.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
EditorsMarco Danelutto, Marco Vanneschi, Domenico Laforenza
PublisherSpringer
Pages833-845
Number of pages13
ISBN (Print)3540229248
DOIs
StatePublished - 2004
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume3149
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Implementing MPI on the BlueGene/L supercomputer'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this