Parallel Computing On The Road To Exascale

As predicted by Gordon E. Moore in 1965, the performance of computer processors increased at an exponential rate. Nevertheless, the increases in computing speeds of single processor machines were eventually curtailed by physical constraints. This led to the development of parallel computing, and whilst progress has been made in this field, the complexities of parallel algorithm design, the deficiencies of the available software development tools and the complexity of scheduling tasks over thousands and even millions of processing nodes represent a major challenge to the construction and use of more powerful parallel systems. This book presents the proceedings of the biennial International Conference on Parallel Computing (ParCo2015), held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in September 2015. Topics covered include computer architecture and performance, programming models and methods, as well as applications. The book also includes two invited talks and a number of mini-symposia. Exascale computing holds enormous promise in terms of increasing scientific knowledge acquisition and thus contributing to the future well-being and prosperity of mankind. A number of innovative approaches to the development and use of future high-performance and high-throughput systems are to be found in this book, which will be of interest to all those whose work involves the handling and processing of large amounts of data.

Single processing units have now reached a point where further major improvements in their performance are restricted by their physical limitations. This is causing a slowing down in advances at the same time as new scientific challenges are demanding exascale speed. This has meant that parallel processing has become key to High Performance Computing (HPC). This book contains the proceedings of the 14th biennial ParCo conference, ParCo2011, held in Ghent, Belgium. The ParCo conferences have traditionally concentrated on three main themes: Algorithms, Architectures and Applications. Nowadays though, the focus has shifted from traditional multiprocessor topologies to heterogeneous and manycores, incorporating standard CPUs, GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). These platforms are, at a higher abstraction level, integrated in clusters, grids and clouds. The papers presented here reflect this change of focus. New architectures, programming tools and techniques are also explored, and the need for exascale hardware and software was also discussed in the industrial session of the conference.This book will be of interest to all those interested in parallel computing today, and progress towards the exascale computing of tomorrow.

Single processing units have now reached a point where further major improvements in their performance are restricted by their physical limitations. This is causing a slowing down in advances at the same time as new scientific challenges are demanding exascale speed. This has meant that parallel processing has become key to High Performance Computing (HPC).This book contains the proceedings of the 14th biennial ParCo conference, ParCo2011, held in Ghent, Belgium. The ParCo conferences have traditionally concentrated on three main themes: Algorithms, Architectures and Applications. Nowadays though, the focus has shifted from traditional multiprocessor topologies to heterogeneous and manycores, incorporating standard CPUs, GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). These platforms are, at a higher abstraction level, integrated in clusters, grids and clouds. The papers presented here reflect this change of focus. New architectures, programming tools and techniques are also explored, and the need for exascale hardware and software was also discussed in the industrial session of the conference.This book will be of interest to all those interested in parallel computing today, and progress towards the exascale computing of tomorrow.

The most powerful computers work by harnessing the combined computational power of millions of processors, and exploiting the full potential of such large-scale systems is something which becomes more difficult with each succeeding generation of parallel computers. Alternative architectures and computer paradigms are increasingly being investigated in an attempt to address these difficulties. Added to this, the pervasive presence of heterogeneous and parallel devices in consumer products such as mobile phones, tablets, personal computers and servers also demands efficient programming environments and applications aimed at small-scale parallel systems as opposed to large-scale supercomputers. This book presents a selection of papers presented at the conference: Parallel Computing (ParCo2017), held in Bologna, Italy, on 12 to 15 September 2017. The conference included contributions about alternative approaches to achieving High Performance Computing (HPC) to potentially surpass exa- and zetascale performances, as well as papers on the application of quantum computers and FPGA processors. These developments are aimed at making available systems better capable of solving intensive computational scientific/engineering problems such as climate models, security applications and classic NP-problems, some of which cannot currently be managed by even the most powerful supercomputers available. New areas of application, such as robotics, AI and learning systems, data science, the Internet of Things (IoT), and in-car systems and autonomous vehicles were also covered. As always, ParCo2017 attracted a large number of notable contributions covering present and future developments in parallel computing, and the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 9th International Conference on High Performance Computing for Computational Science, VECPAR 2010, held in Berkeley, CA, USA, in June 2010. The 34 revised full papers presented together with five invited contributions were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and revision. The papers are organized in topical sections on linear algebra and solvers on emerging architectures, large-scale simulations, parallel and distributed computing, numerical algorithms.

Parallel computing has been the enabling technology of high-end machines for many years. Now, it has finally become the ubiquitous key to the efficient use of any kind of multi-processor computer architecture, from smart phones, tablets, embedded systems and cloud computing up to exascale computers. _x000D_ This book presents the proceedings of ParCo2013 – the latest edition of the biennial International Conference on Parallel Computing – held from 10 to 13 September 2013, in Garching, Germany. The conference focused on several key parallel computing areas. Themes included parallel programming models for multi- and manycore CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and heterogeneous platforms, the performance engineering processes that must be adapted to efficiently use these new and innovative platforms, novel numerical algorithms and approaches to large-scale simulations of problems in science and engineering._x000D_ The conference programme also included twelve mini-symposia (including an industry session and a special PhD Symposium), which comprehensively represented and intensified the discussion of current hot topics in high performance and parallel computing. These special sessions covered large-scale supercomputing, novel challenges arising from parallel architectures (multi-/manycore, heterogeneous platforms, FPGAs), multi-level algorithms as well as multi-scale, multi-physics and multi-dimensional problems._x000D_ It is clear that parallel computing – including the processing of large data sets (“Big Data”) – will remain a persistent driver of research in all fields of innovative computing, which makes this book relevant to all those with an interest in this field.

The book ‘Data Intensive Computing Applications for Big Data’ discusses the technical concepts of big data, data intensive computing through machine learning, soft computing and parallel computing paradigms. It brings together researchers to report their latest results or progress in the development of the above mentioned areas. Since there are few books on this specific subject, the editors aim to provide a common platform for researchers working in this area to exhibit their novel findings. The book is intended as a reference work for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, as well as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research workers and scientists on the subjects of big data and cloud/parallel and distributed computing, and explains didactically many of the core concepts of these approaches for practical applications. It is organized into 24 chapters providing a comprehensive overview of big data analysis using parallel computing and addresses the complete data science workflow in the cloud, as well as dealing with privacy issues and the challenges faced in a data-intensive cloud computing environment. The book explores both fundamental and high-level concepts, and will serve as a manual for those in the industry, while also helping beginners to understand the basic and advanced aspects of big data and cloud computing.

From the Foreword: "The authors of the chapters in this book are the pioneers who will explore the exascale frontier. The path forward will not be easy... These authors, along with their colleagues who will produce these powerful computer systems will, with dedication and determination, overcome the scalability problem, discover the new algorithms needed to achieve exascale performance for the broad range of applications that they represent, and create the new tools needed to support the development of scalable and portable science and engineering applications. Although the focus is on exascale computers, the benefits will permeate all of science and engineering because the technologies developed for the exascale computers of tomorrow will also power the petascale servers and terascale workstations of tomorrow. These affordable computing capabilities will empower scientists and engineers everywhere." — Thom H. Dunning, Jr., Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA "This comprehensive summary of applications targeting Exascale at the three DoE labs is a must read." — Rio Yokota, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan "Numerical simulation is now a need in many fields of science, technology, and industry. The complexity of the simulated systems coupled with the massive use of data makes HPC essential to move towards predictive simulations. Advances in computer architecture have so far permitted scientific advances, but at the cost of continually adapting algorithms and applications. The next technological breakthroughs force us to rethink the applications by taking energy consumption into account. These profound modifications require not only anticipation and sharing but also a paradigm shift in application design to ensure the sustainability of developments by guaranteeing a certain independence of the applications to the profound modifications of the architectures: it is the passage from optimal performance to the portability of performance. It is the challenge of this book to demonstrate by example the approach that one can adopt for the development of applications offering performance portability in spite of the profound changes of the computing architectures." — Christophe Calvin, CEA, Fundamental Research Division, Saclay, France "Three editors, one from each of the High Performance Computer Centers at Lawrence Berkeley, Argonne, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, have compiled a very useful set of chapters aimed at describing software developments for the next generation exa-scale computers. Such a book is needed for scientists and engineers to see where the field is going and how they will be able to exploit such architectures for their own work. The book will also benefit students as it provides insights into how to develop software for such computer architectures. Overall, this book fills an important need in showing how to design and implement algorithms for exa-scale architectures which are heterogeneous and have unique memory systems. The book discusses issues with developing user codes for these architectures and how to address these issues including actual coding examples.’ — Dr. David A. Dixon, Robert Ramsay Chair, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA

For the last four decades, parallel computing platforms have increasingly formed the basis for the development of high performance systems primarily aimed at the solution of intensive computing problems, and the application of parallel computing systems has also become a major factor in furthering scientific research. But such systems also offer the possibility of solving the problems encountered in the processing of large-scale scientific data sets, as well as in the analysis of Big Data in the fields of medicine, social media, marketing, economics etc. This book presents papers from the International Research Workshop on Advanced High Performance Computing Systems, held in Cetraro, Italy, in July 2016. The workshop covered a wide range of topics and new developments related to the solution of intensive and large-scale computing problems, and the contributions included in this volume cover aspects of the evolution of parallel platforms and highlight some of the problems encountered with the development of ever more powerful computing systems. The importance of future large-scale data science applications is also discussed. The book will be of particular interest to all those involved in the development or application of parallel computing systems.