Graph Visualization for the Analysis of the Structure and Dynamics of Extreme-Scale Supercomputers

Kenneth L. Summers, Thomas Preston Caudell, Kathryn Berkbigler, Brian Bush, Kei Davis, Steve Smith
2004 Information Visualization  
We are exploring the development and application of information visualization techniques for the analysis of new extreme-scale supercomputer architectures. Modern supercomputers typically comprise very large clusters of commodity SMPs interconnected by possibly dense and often nonstandard networks. The scale, complexity, and inherent nonlocality of the structure and dynamics of this hardware, and the systems and applications distributed over it, challenge traditional analysis methods. As part
more » ... theà la carte team at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who are simulating these advanced architectures, we are exploring advanced visualization techniques and creating tools to provide intuitive exploration, discovery, and analysis of these simulations. This work complements existing and emerging algorithmic analysis tools. Here we gives background on the problem domain, a description of a prototypical computer architecture of interest (on the order of 10,000 processors connected by a quaternary fat-tree network), and presentations of several visualizations of the simulation data that make clear the flow of data in the interconnection network.
doi:10.1057/palgrave.ivs.9500079 fatcat:c56gwrgaxzau3ihnnhxbqyyt7q