[Paraview] 100% CPU usage once again

Wed Oct 4 11:31:29 EDT 2017

Dear ParaView developer,

in [1] you say
> If you have information on disabling the busy wait using a different MPI
> implementation, please contribute back by documenting it here.

Here we go.

a)
It is possible to build 'pvserver' using Intel MPI (and GCC compilers).
By setting I_MPI_WAIT_MODE  environment variable to 'enable' value you can
effectively prevent busy waiting, see [2] p.10 (Tested with Intel MPI
5.1(.3.181)).

Q/FR.1 Could you please provide a version of 'pvserver' build using Intel MPI in
official release of ParaView? [4]

b)
It is (obviously) possible to build 'pvserver' using MPICH (and GCC compilers).
Itself, MPICH can be *configured* with '--with-device=ch3:sock' option. This is
described to be 'slower' as '--with-device=ch3:nemesis'
For our experiments it turned out, that 'pvserver' compiled and linked using
MPICH with 'ch3:sock' configure option did not have the busy waiting aka
100%-CPU behaviour.
Note that this is *configure-time of MPI library* parameter.

(Tested with MPICH  3.2)

Q/FR.2 Could you please provide a version of 'pvserver' build using MPICH
*configured with '--with-device=ch3:sock' option* in official release of
ParaView? [4]
This binary will be very likely be even compatible with 'standard' MPICH
installations; we're able to start it even with IntelMPI's 'mpiexec' with
success and no busy waiting. However YES you will need to have a MPICH release
be build

c)
It is possible to build 'pvserver' using Open MPI (and GCC compilers).
In [1] you document how-to 'turn off' the busy waiting behaviour in Open MPI
(cf. [5],[6]).
Unfortunately this *did not work* in our environment (InfiniBand QDR and Intel
OmniPath clusters, OpenMPI 1.10.4).
Note that likely we're not alone, cf. [7].
Note that the switch likely just move the spinning location from MPI library
itself to the fabrics library (cf. the screenshots, without 'mpi_yield_when_idle
1' (=default) the 'pvserver' processes spin with 'green' aka user 100%, and with
'mpi_yield_when_idle 1' the processes stays spinning but now with a lot of 'red'
aka kernel time portion.

Conclusion: the way to disable busy waiting for Open MPI which is documented in
[1], is not useful for us. We do not know this is a speciality of our site or a
general issue; we think some survey at this point could be useful.

Q/FR.3 In case you should want to provide precompiled versions ov 'pvserver' for
Open MPI, remember that there are ABI changes in major version changes. So you
would likely need to compile+link *three* versions of 'pvserver' with Open MPI
1.10.x (still default in Linux), 2.x (current), 3.x (new).

d) In [10] there is a phrase about how-to disable busy waiting on yet another
two MPI implementaions,
> ... IBM MPI has the MP_WAIT_MODE and
> the SUPER-UX MPI/XS library has MPISUSPEND to choose the waiting mode,
> either polling or sleeping.

Somebody with access to there MPIs could evaluate this, maybe.

Have a nice day,

Paul Kapinos

[1]
https://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Setting_up_a_ParaView_Server#Server_processes_always_have_100.25_CPU_usage

[2]
https://software.intel.com/sites/products/Whitepaper/Clustertools/amplxe_inspxe_interop_with_mpi.pdf
  (cf. p.10)

[3]
https://wiki.mpich.org/mpich/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Q:_Why_does_my_MPI_program_run_much_slower_when_I_use_more_processes.3F

[4] https://www.paraview.org/download/

[5] http://www.open-mpi.org/faq/?category=running#oversubscribing

[6] http://www.open-mpi.org/faq/?category=running#force-aggressive-degraded

[7] https://www.paraview.org/pipermail/paraview/2008-December/010349.html

[8] http://blogs.cisco.com/performance/polling-vs-blocking-message-passingprogress

[9] https://www.open-mpi.org/community/lists/users/2010/10/14505.php

[10] http://comp.parallel.mpi.narkive.com/3oXMDXno/non-busy-waiting-barrier-in-mpi

[11] http://blogs.cisco.com/performance/polling-vs-blocking-message-passingprogress

[12] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14560714/probe-seems-to-consume-the-cpu

-- 
Dipl.-Inform. Paul Kapinos   -   High Performance Computing,
RWTH Aachen University, IT Center
Seffenter Weg 23,  D 52074  Aachen (Germany)
Tel: +49 241/80-24915

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