A publication of the Advanced Simulation & Computing Division, NA-121.2, NNSA Defense Programs
March 2009
NA-ASC-500-09—Issue 10
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Structural Simulation Toolkit Mitigates Risks in Supercomputer Deployments
Taking chances with supercomputing is a very unhealthy business. Costs are in the tens to hundreds of millions. Complexity is high with numerous commodity and customized parts requiring integration. Innovative architectures like multicore come with extreme uncertainty. The simulation codes to be run are diverse. Potential unknowns are everywhere. Sandia has responded to this high risk by developing the Structural Simulation Toolkit (SST) to provide early insight into how future supercomputers will perform. The SST enables researchers to explore the performance of supercomputers running complex simulations virtually, all before funds and resources are committed. The SST has already had dramatic impact on the success of supercomputer deployments. It has also identified significant issues in scaling multicore hardware and pinpointed differences between current performance tests and real-world applications.
Simulations reveal potential enhancements to the Red Storm network.
A specific example is of the use of SST to model the network used on Sandia's Red Storm Supercomputer. These simulations helped identify bottlenecks and also reveal how future enhancements to network interfaces and components could improve performance.
Understanding the performance limitations of future supercomputers is key to supporting a range of simulation-based science activities. The field of computer architecture is currently exploring a range of new hardware and software techniques. The Structural Simulation Toolkit provides a modular framework to explore these novel hardware and software systems.
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