A Performance and Scalability Analysis of the BlueGene/L Architecture

This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 gives an architectural description of BlueGene/L. Section 3 analyzes the issue of “computational noise” – the effect that the operating system has on the system and application performance. Section 4 describes the performance characteristics of the communication networks. Section 5 deals with single processor performance. Section 6 addresses application performance and scalability, including performance prediction. Most of the results are taken from a 512-node machine running at 500MHz. Also included is a comparison of the predicted performance of BlueGene/L against the performance of ASCI Q and early results from a larger 2048 node BlueGene/L machine clocked at 700MHz. Finally the analysis is summarized in section 7. Based on a set of measurements done on the 512-node 500MHz prototype and early results on a 2048 node 700MHz BlueGene/L machine at IBM Watson, we present a performance and scalability analysis of the architecture from l...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: SC
• Authors: Kei Davis, Adolfy Hoisie, Greg Johnson, Darren J. Kerbyson, Michael Lang 0003, Scott Pakin, Fabrizio Petrini
• Keywords: Application Performance, Applied Computing, Performance, Performance Models, SC 2004