Runtime Adaptation for Autonomic Heterogeneous Computing

Abstract

Heterogeneity is increasing across all levels of computing, with the rise of accelerators such as GPUs, FPGAs, and other coprocessors into everything from cell phones to supercomputers. More quietly it is increasing with the rise of NUMA systems, hierarchical caching, OS noise, and a myriad of other factors. As heterogeneity becomes a fact of life, efficiently managing heterogeneous compute resources is becoming a critical, and ever more complex, task. The focus of this dissertation is to lay the foundation for an autonomic system for heterogeneous computing, employing runtime adaptation to improve performance portability and performance consistency while maintaining or increasing programmability. We investigate heterogeneity arising from a myriad of factors, grouped into the dimensions of locality and capability. This work has resulted in runtime schedulers capable of automatically detecting and mitigating heterogeneity in physically homogeneous systems through MPI and adaptive coscheduling for physically heterogeneous accelerator based systems as well as a synthesis of the two to address multiple levels of heterogeneity as a coherent whole. We also discuss our current work towards the next generation of fine-grained scheduling and synchronization across heterogeneous platforms in the design of a highly-scalable and portable concurrent queue for many-core systems. Each component addresses aspects of the urgent need for automated management of the extreme and ever expanding complexity introduced by heterogeneity.