Visualizing execution traces with task dependencies

Task-based scheduling has emerged as one solution to the complexity of parallel computing. When using these tools, developers must frame their computation as a series of tasks with various data dependencies. The scheduler can take these tasks, along with their input and output dependencies, and schedule the task in parallel across a node or cluster. While these schedulers simplify the process of parallel software development, they can obfuscate the performance characteristics of the execution of an algorithm. The execution trace has been used for many years to give developers a visual representation of how their computations are performed. These methods can be easily employed to visualize when and where each of the tasks in a task-based algorithm is scheduled. In addition, the task dependencies can be used to create a directed acyclic graph (DAG) that can also be visualized to demonstrate the dependencies of the various tasks that make up a workload. The work presented here aims to co...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: SC
• Authors: Blake Haugen, Stephen Richmond, Jakub Kurzak, Chad A. Steed, Jack Dongarra
• Keywords: Applied Computing, SC 2015