A performance analysis of architectural scalability
Daniel A. Reed, Alex Y. Kwok · 1987
The peak performance of a multiprocessor system is rarely attainable. Algorithm penalty, interprocessor communication cost, and synchronization overhead are major factors limiting the performance scalability. The MPPP is a trace driven simulation facility developed for the performance prediction of large scale multiple vector-processor systems. This facility, when used with the Parafrase program restructurer, provides a powerful tool for studying the performance of parallel Fortran programs under variations of architecture, system, and workload parameters. Using the MPPP facility, we analyze the performance scalability issue at three different levels: (1) the algorithm restructuring level, (2) the compiler optimization level, and (3) the machine organization level. Johnsson's narrow banded linear systems solver, the fast Fourier transform, the preconditioned conjugate gradient method, and the Gaussian elimination with pivoting algorithm were used as sample workload in our analysis.