Tuesday October 27, 2009 New whitepaper: Tuning Parallel Code on Solaris - Lessons Learned from HPC
Most computers today are equipped with multicore processors and manufacturers are increasing core and thread counts, as the most cost effective and energy efficient route to increased processing throughput. However, tuning parallel applications brings with it complex challenges that can only be overcome with increasingly advanced tools and techniques.
The set of tools needed to achieve this goal was expanded continuously in each successive version of the Solaris OS, culminating in Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris with DTrace — arguably the most advanced observability tool available today in any operating environment. Learn by example about the tools available in Solaris and how they can be applied to determine where problems lie with parallel code and then how to figure them out. Download PDF
Posted by Rich Brueckner [Hot Documents] ( October 27, 2009 12:00 AM ) Permalink | Comments [0]
Thursday October 15, 2009 New Whitepaper: HPC Profiling with Sun Studio Performance Tools
Abstract: In this paper, we describe how to use the Sun Studio Performance Tools to understand the nature and causes of application performance problems. We first explore CPU and memory performance problems for single-threaded applications, giving some simple examples. Then, we discuss multi-threaded performance issues, such as locking and false-sharing of cache lines, in each case showing how the tools can help. We go on to describe OpenMP applications and the support for them in the performance tools. Then we discuss MPI applications, and the techniques used to profile them. Finally, we present our conclusions. Download PDF
Posted by Rich Brueckner [Hot Documents] ( October 15, 2009 05:00 AM ) Permalink | Comments [0]
Wednesday October 14, 2009 New Blueprint: Accelerating Databases Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array
This new blueprint article shows how to apply the Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array as storage for database indexes in order to accelerate application performance. Full Story
Posted by Rich Brueckner [Hot Documents] ( October 14, 2009 05:00 AM ) Permalink | Comments [0]
Friday September 25, 2009 Blueprint: Sun Business Ready HPC for ANSYS FLUENT
This Sun BluePrints article provides an overview of configuration requirements for running ANSYS FLUENT in a high-performance clustered environment on Sun systems. Sample performance data and detailed suggestions for designing and configuring a complete solution that addresses the most demanding ANSYS FLUENT workloads are presented. Full Story
Posted by Rich Brueckner [Hot Documents] ( September 25, 2009 05:00 AM ) Permalink | Comments [0]
Friday September 18, 2009 Oracle and Sun showcase 'world's fastest' database machine
While you might not consider this to be HPC, it sure sound like high performance computing to me ;-) Oracle and Sun have introduced the "world's first" online transaction processing (OLTP) database machine.
Sun provides the hardware with:
50% Faster CPUs - Intel Xeon 5500 Series (Nehalem) processors
50% Faster Disks - 600 GB SAS Disks at 6 Gigabits/second
300% Faster Memory - DDR3 memory
125% More Memory - 72 Gigabytes per Database Server
100% Faster Network - 40 Gigabits/second InfiniBand
Raw disk capacity of 100 TB per Exadata V2
Exadata Smart Flash Cache for transaction processing and mixed workloads
Oracle brings the software:
Features the latest generation of innovation - Oracle Database 11g Release 2
Hybrid columnar compression for 10-50 times greater data compression
Scans on compressed data for even faster query execution
Storage Indexes to further reduce disk I/Os
Offloading of query processing to storage using Smart Scans
Smart scan of Data Mining models in storage servers
According to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Exadata 2 is the "fastest machine" for both data warehousing and online transaction processing. Full Story
Posted by Rich Brueckner [Hot Documents] ( September 18, 2009 05:00 AM ) Permalink | Comments [0]
Sunday September 13, 2009 New Blueprint: Sun Business Ready HPC for ANSYS FLUENT
A new Sun Blueprint article provides an overview of configuration requirements for running ANSYS FLUENT in a high-performance clustered environment on Sun systems. Sample performance data and detailed suggestions for designing and configuring a complete solution that addresses the most demanding ANSYS FLUENT workloads are presented. Full Story
More specifically, this document addresses the following topics:
* “Constructing a Compute Cluster for ANSYS FLUENT,” a description of ANSYS FLUENT and general sizing information regarding node count, memory, disk, and interconnect configurations that can help optimize performance.
* “Recommended Configuration,” includes information on a Sun Business Ready HPC Solution that satisfies the requirements of ANSYS FLUENT workloads.
* “For More Information,” offers pointers to additional informational resources.
* “Appendix A: ANSYS FLUENT Benchmark Models,” includes information on a range of ANSYS FLUENT benchmark models that can be helpful in evaluating the performance capabilities of a particular configuration.
* “Appendix B: The Lustre file system,” includes information on the characteristics and benefits of the Lustre™ file system.
