Articles by Andrey

Best Practices for Speed in Deep Learning Applications on Intel Architecture

July 3, 2018

You have set up a deep learning model that you are planning to train on an Intel architecture processor. In order to be productive, you have to minimize the training time. You run the application and see that it takes N seconds for a single training epoch. How do you know if it is good? If improvement is possible, what can you do to improve the training time? Are there tools to identify a tuning strategy? Intel software development tools can answer these questions to maximize your productivity in deep learning on Intel architecture. At the Intel AI DevCon 2018 in San Francisco, Alaa Eltablawy (Colfax) presented a workshop that demonstrates how this works. For the workshop, attendees received access to the Intel® AI DevCloud, where they could experiment with the optimization of a TensorFlow-based application for image segmentation. The instructor demonstrated the performance analysis results obtained with Intel® VTune Amplifier and Application Performance Snapshot and explained how this analysis consistently guides you to the use of known “performance tuning knobs” in [...]

An optimization approach for agent-based computational models of biological development

April 9, 2018

Pablo Gonzalez-de-Aledoa, Andrey Vladimirovd, Marco Mancab, Jerry Baughc, Ryo Asaid, Marcus Kaisere,f, Roman Bauerf,e a Software Performance Optimization Group, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom b CERN Openlab, IT Department, CERN, Switzerland c Intel Corporation, USA d Colfax International, USA e Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex BioSystems Research Group, School of Computing, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom f Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom A paper led by Pablo Gonzales-de-Aledo (Imperial College London) with contributions from his colleagues from CERN, Intel, Colfax and Newcastle University was published in the journal Advances in Engineering Software. This is a case study on performance optimization in a biological simulation code. The code presents a highly parallel implementation of a computer simulation that involves millions of agents interacting in a 3D environment. The paper explains the general approach to transforming a sequential code to run on modern, highly [...]

A Performance-Based Comparison of C/C++ Compilers

November 11, 2017

This paper reports a performance-based comparison of six state-of-the-art C/C++ compilers: AOCC, Clang, G++, Intel C++ compiler, PGC++, and Zapcc. We measure two aspects of the compilers’ performance: The speed of compiled C/C++ code parallelized with OpenMP 4.x directives for multi-threading and vectorization. The compilation time for large projects with heavy C++ templating. In addition to measuring the performance, we interpret the results by examining the assembly instructions produced by each compiler. The tests are performed on an Intel Xeon Platinum processor featuring the Skylake architecture with AVX-512 vector instructions. Colfax_Compiler_Comparison.pdf (562 KB) Table of Contents 1. The Importance of a Good Compiler 2. Testing Methodology 2.1. Meet the Compilers 2.2. Target Architecture 2.3. Computational Kernels 2.4. Compilation Time 2.5. Test Details 2.6. Test Platform 2.7. Code Analysis 3. Results 3.1. Performance of Compiled Code 3.2. Compilation Speed 4. Summary Appendix A. LU Decomposition Appendix B. Jacobi Solver Appendix C. Structure Function Appendix [...]

A Survey and Benchmarks of Intel® Xeon® Gold and Platinum Processors

November 7, 2017

This paper provides quantitative guidelines and performance estimates for choosing a processor among the Platinum and Gold groups of the Intel Xeon Scalable family (formerly Skylake). The performance estimates are based on detailed technical specifications of the processors, including the efficiency of the Intel Turbo Boost technology. The achievable performance metrics are experimentally validated on several processor models with synthetic workloads. The best choice of the processor must take into account the nature of the application for which the processor is intended: multi-threading or multi-processing efficiency, support for vectorization, and dependence on memory bandwidth. Colfax-Xeon-Scalable.pdf (334 KB) Table of Contents 1. Which Xeon is Right for You? 2. CPU Comparison for Different Workloads 2.4. Bandwidth-Limited 3. Processor Choice Recommendations 4. Silver and Bronze Models 5. Large Memory, Integrated Fabric, Thermal Optimization 1. Which Xeon is Right for You? In 2017, the Intel Xeon Scalable processor family was released, featuring the Skylake architecture. [...]

HOW Series “Deep Dive”: Webinars on Performance Optimization – 2017 Edition

June 30, 2017

Register Why Attend Roadmap Instructor Prerequisites Cluster Materials Book In a Nutshell HOW Series “Deep Dive” is a free Web-based training on parallel programming and performance optimization on Intel architecture. The workshop includes 20 hours of instruction and code for hands-on exercises. This training is free to everyone thanks to Intel’s sponsorship. You can access the video recordings of lectures, slides of presentations and code of practical exercises on this page using a free Colfax Research account. To run the hands-on exercises, you will need a multi-core Intel architecture processor and the Intel C++ Compiler. You can get this compiler for 30 days at no cost using an evaluation license for Intel Parallel Studio [...]

Webinar: Demystifying Vectorization

May 18, 2017

Free Webinar Abstract Have you heard of code vectorization, but not sure how it applies to your work? Rest assured, you are in a good company. Furthermore, even seasoned computing professionals have a good excuse for not being familiar with this concept! That said, now is a great time to learn about writing vectorized code. That is because in modern Intel processors, vector instructions may speed up arithmetic instructions by up to a factor of 16. However, you must design computational code in a way that makes vector processing possible. In this 1-hour webinar I will explain what to expect from vectorization, and how to make sure that your code has it: Manual and compiler-assisted vectorization Assessing your success with vectorization Loop was vectorized – what’s next? Speaker Andrey Vladimirov, Head of HPC Research, Colfax International Dr. Andrey Vladimirov’s primary research interest is the application of modern computing technologies to computationally demanding scientific problems. Prior to joining Colfax, Andrey was involved in theoretical astrophysics [...]

MC² Series: Modern Code Contributed Talks

February 10, 2017

In Modern Code Contributed Talks, or MC² Series, experts in computational disciplines share their experience. Register for these ongoing webinars to learn the performance optimization methods used in real-life applications. Would you like to contribute a talk? Contact us. Scholarship is available in the form of access to a diverse collection of powerful computing [...]

Modern Code for Intel Xeon Phi Processors

December 8, 2016

This series of 45-minute webinars was presented by Colfax International in collaboration with Intel in 2016. ► Part 1 | ► Part 2 | ► Part 3 1. Strategies for Multi-Threading on Intel Xeon Phi Processors Practical recipes for optimizing performance in multi-threaded computational applications on Intel Xeon Phi processors. Presentation covers common issues with thread parallelism: excessive synchronization, false sharing, insufficient iteration space size, and methods for overcoming these issues: parallel reduction, data padding, strip-mining and loop collapse, and nested parallelism. ► Click to watch recording (45 min) – this webinar aired September 28, 2016 Slides: Colfax_Modern_Code_Webinar_01.pdf (5 MB) 2. Fine-Tuning Vectorization on Intel Xeon Phi Processors Vectorization of computational applications on Intel Xeon Phi processors. Covers automatic vectorization essentials and the toolkit for advanced tuning of vectorization performance, including compiler directives, data container optimization, and language extensions for expression of data [...]

Clustering Modes in Knights Landing Processors

May 11, 2016

This publication is part of a developer guide focusing on the new features in 2nd generation Intel® Xeon Phi™ processors code-named Knights Landing (KNL). In this document we discuss the clustering modes of the on-die mesh interconnect. We start a discussion on what types of applications benefit from the clustering modes and why clustering modes help these applications. After that we cover the specifics of the available cluster modes: all-to-all, quadrant, hemisphere, SNC-4 and SNC-2. Finally, we discuss how to make the application NUMA-aware for use in SNC modes. In this context, we give recipes for nested OpenMP and hybrid MPI+OpenMP approaches combined with first-touch allocation policy, numactl tool and memkind library. Colfax_KNL_Clustering_Modes_Guide.pdf (376 KB) See also: colfaxresearch.com/get-ready-for-intel-knights-landing-3-papers/ Table of Contents 1. Cache Organization in KNL 2. Clustering Modes 2.1. All-to-All 2.2. Quadrant/Hemisphere 2.3. SNC-4/SNC-2 2.4. Setting the Clustering Mode 3. Programming with Sub-NUMA Clusters 3.1. Querying NUMA Information [...]

Optimization Techniques for the Intel MIC Architecture. Part 3 of 3: False Sharing and Padding

August 8, 2015

This is part 3 of a 3-part educational series of publications introducing select topics on optimization of applications for Intel’s multi-core and manycore architectures (Intel Xeon processors and Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors). In this paper we discuss false sharing, highlighting the situations in which it may occur, and eliminating it with the help of data container padding. For a practical illustration, we construct and optimize a micro-kernel for binning particles based on their coordinates. Similar workloads occur in Monte Carlo simulations, particle physics software, and statistical analysis. Results show that the impact of false sharing may be as high as an order of magnitude performance loss in a parallel application. On Intel Xeon processors, padding required to eliminate false sharing is greater than on Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors, so target-specific padding values may be used in real-life applications. See also: Part 1: Multi-Threading and Parallel Reduction Part 2: Strip-Mining for Vectorization Part 3: False Sharing and Padding Complete paper: [...]

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