Communication Reduction in Iterative Grid-based Computing Using SuperBoundary Exchange Tech

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CommunicationReductioninIterativeGrid-basedComputingUsingSuperBoundaryExchangeTechnique

HairongKuang,LubomirF.Bic,andMichaelB.DillencourtInformationandComputerScienceUniversityofCalifornia,Irvine,CA92697-3425,USAhkuang,bic,dillenco@ics.uci.edu

ABSTRACTIterativegrid-basedapplications,typifiedbythefinitedif-ferencemethodforsolvingpartialdifferentialequations[1]andspatiallyorientedindividual-basedsimulations[2],areimportantapplicationsfordistributedcomputing.How-ever,iterativegrid-baseddistributedcomputationsrequirethatcommunicationbeperformedateverystep,whichcanleadtosignificantcommunicationoverhead.WeshowhowatechniquecalledSuperBoundaryExchange(SBX)forsignificantlyreducingthisoverheadinfinite-differencecomputations,firstintroducedin[3],canbeappliedtoindividual-basedcomputationsaswell,atacostofasome-whatcoarsergridthanmightotherwisebenecessary.

KEYWORDSgrid-basedcomputing,individual-basedsimulations,boundaryexchange

1.IntroductionDistributedcomputing,whichallowscomputingoveranet-workofworkstations,isbecomingincreasinglypopularandcosteffective,asworkstationsbecomelessexpensiveandnetworksareavailabletomoreusers.Iterativegrid-basedapplicationsareonetypeofapplicationthatcanbenefitfromdistributedimplementation.Theseapplica-tionsarefrequentlytime-consuming,whichmakesthemworthdistributingovermultiplecomputers.Spatiallyori-entedcomputationsmakeiteasytopartitionthesimulationspace.Nearneighborcomputationsreducethecommuni-cationcost.Typicalexamplesofiterativegrid-basedcom-putationsarethefinitedifferencemethodforsolvingpartialdifferentialequations[1],andspatiallyorientedindividual-basedsimulations,inwhichthebehaviorofentitiesisbasedsolelyontheirinteractionswithnearbyentities[2].Oneoftheissueswiththedistributedimplementedofiterativegrid-basedcomputationisprogramperformance.Iterativegrid-baseddistributedcomputationsrequirethatcommunicationbeperformedateverystep,whichcanleadtosignificantcommunicationoverhead.Inapreviouspa-per[3],weintroducedatechniquecalledSuperBoundaryExchange(SBX)forsignificantlyreducingthisoverheadinfinite-differencecomputations.Theunderlyingtradeoffisfewermessagesagainstpotentiallylongermessagesandsomeadditional,redundant,computation.TheSuperboundaryExchangetechniqueisillustratedinFigure1.Supposethatwearesolvinga1-dimensionalfinitedifferenceequationonanetworkofprocessors.Supposethatthevaluesofassociatedwithintherangearecomputedonaparticularprocessor,andthevaluesofassociatedwithintherangearecomputedonaneighbor-ingprocessor.Inordertocomputethevalueof,mustknowthevalueof;hencethisdata(the“ghostboundary”)mustbesenttobyitsneighboronceitisknown.Ifeachprocessoronlystoresthedatafortheval-uesdirectlyassociatedwithit,suchanexchangeofbound-arydatamustoccurateachtimestepinthecomputation.ThisisillustratedinFigure1(a),whichshowsthecom-putationfromtheendoftimestep3totheendoftimestep6.Thefirstrowshowsthecomputationattheendoftimestep3.Thenextthreedoublerowsillustratetimesteps4,5,and6;eachofthesetimestepsisshownaftertheghostboundaryhasbeenexchangedatthebeginningofthetimestep(thedottedboxindicatestheghostboundary),andthenafterthecomputationforthetimestephasbeencompleted.SuperBoundaryExchangeisatechniqueforreducingthefrequencyofthisboundaryexchange.Suppose,atthebe-ginningoftimestep,thevalues,andaresenttobyitsneighbor.Thenattime,hasalldatanecessarytocomputethevalues,,and.Itcanthenusethisdatatocompute,and,andthentocompute.Hencenofur-therboundarydatamustbeexchangeduntiltime,andingeneral,datamustonlybeexchangedeverythreeitera-tions.ThisisillustratedforinFigure1(b).WhiletheonlyapplicationweusedtoillustratetheSuperBoundaryExchangein[3]isthefinitedifferencemethod,theSuperBoundaryExchangetechniquecanbeappliedtoawiderclassofproblems.Thetechniquecanbeappliedtoanyapplicationthathasanunderlyinglog-icalspacewithawell-definednotionofneighbor,andaniterativecomputationwherethecomputationataparticu-larlocationinanygiventimestepdependsonthestateof.........

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......(a)

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Figure1.SuperboundaryExchangeforfinite-differencecomputations[3].

thatlocationanditsneighborsintheprecedingtimestep.Oneexampleofthistypeofapplicationisindividual-basedsimulation.Here,theboundarydatatobeexchangedisthestateoftheentitiesinneighboringnodes.TheSuper-BoundaryExchangewouldrequireredundantcomputationofthebehaviorsoftheseentitiesafteranexchangeofdata.However,individual-basedsimulationsaredifferentfromthefinitedifferencemethodinthattheentitiesmigrateinthesimulationspace.Thus,ineachtimestep,notonlytheboundarybutalsothemigratingentitiesneedtobeex-changed.