EP Analytics’ Perfector (for Performance Inspector) tool helps maximize the utility of each dollar spent on large-scale HPC system procurements. Perfector achieves this goal by deploying ultra light-weight tools to automatically analyze the communication, computation and Input/Output (I/O) behavior of large HPC codes. The analyzed behavior is presented to the code developers and system administrators in the form of viewgraphs that are intuitive and actionable. Below we highlight the key aspects/features of Perfector.
Collection of performance behavior is transparent to the user and the process only requires making a few simple changes to the job script (e.g., loading a module).
Often load imbalance (i.e., disproportionate sharing of work across multiple compute resources) is one of the main reasons that impede the scalability of HPC applications. Perfector collects per-MPI-rank-level performance statistics to that provide load imbalance information by also taking into account the time spent in implicit synchronization during MPI collective operations.