Virtual-machine-based emulation of future generation high-performance computing systems

Patrick G. Bridges*, Dorian Arnold, Kevin T. Pedretti, Madhav Suresh, Feng Lu, Peter A Dinda, Russell E Joseph, Jack Lange

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a system to enable research, development, and testing of new software stacks and hardware features for future high-end computing systems. Motivating uses include both small-scale research and development on simulated individual nodes of proposed high-performance computing systems, and large scaling studies that emulate a sizeable fraction of a future supercomputing system. The proposed architecture combines system virtualization, architectural simulation, time dilation, and slack simulation to provide scalable emulation of hypothetical systems. Virtualization-based full-system measurement and monitoring tools are also included to aid in using the proposed system for co-design of high-performance computing system software and architectural features for future systems. Finally, this paper provides a description of the implementation strategy and status of the system.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)125-135
Number of pages11
JournalInternational Journal of High Performance Computing Applications
Volume26
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2012

Funding

This work was supported in part by the DOE Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing research (grant number DE-SC0005050) and by a faculty sabbatical appointment from Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. This project was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number CNS-0709168) and the Department of Energy (grant number DE-SC0005343).

Keywords

  • emulation
  • exascale systems
  • operating systems
  • testbeds
  • virtualization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Hardware and Architecture

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