A tool for on-line visualization and interactive steering of parallel HPC applications
Sabine Rathmayer, Michael Lenke · 2002
Tools for parallel systems today range from specification over debugging to performance analysis and more. Typically, they help the programmers of parallel algorithms from the early development stages to a certain level of program optimization. However in HPC (High Performance Computing) today the end-user of massively parallel CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)-programs has little or no support in his work. The scientific engineer who often runs his application on a parallel computer somewhere in the WAN (Wide Area Network) and visualizes the enormous amounts of simulation data on a graphical workstation in his LAN (Local Area Network) has needs which are by far not covered by state of the art visualization systems. The tool proposed here follows a strategy which differs completely from existing, batch-oriented and strictly sequential methods of the working process in the application cycle of parallel HPC applications. It allows both on-line visualization and interactive program steering of massively parallel CFD-applications. The parameters of the mathematical model and the numerical methods build objects of a database which can be accessed by an object-oriented graphical user interface via visualization and modification operators. Experiences with this new tool concept VIPER (VIsualization of Parallel numerical simulation algorithms for Extended Research) applied on a real-world and industrial scientific application will be shown.