Holistic Measurement-Driven System Assessment

Saurabh Jha, Jim M. Brandt, Ann C. Gentile, Zbigniew Kalbarczyk, Gregory H. Bauer, Jeremy Enos, Michael T. Showerman, Larry Kaplan, Brett M. Bode, Annette Greiner, Amanda Bonnie, Mike Mason, Ravishankar K. Iyer, William Kramer

Abstract: In high-performance computing systems, application performance and throughput are dependent on a complex interplay of hardware and software subsystems and variable workloads with competing resource demands. Data-driven insights into the potentially widespread scope and propagationof impact of events, such as faults and contention for shared resources, can be used to drive more effective use of resources, for improved root cause diagnosis, and for predicting performance impacts. We present work developing integrated capabilities for holistic monitoring and analysis to understand and characterize propagation of performance-degrading events. These characterizations can be used to determine and invoke mitigating responses by system administrators, applications, and system software.