Parallel benchmarks for ARM processors in the high energy context
J. W. Smith, Andrew J S Hamilton · 2014
High Performance Computing is relevant in many applications around the world, particularly high energy physics. Experiments such as ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb generate huge amounts of data which need to be stored and analyzed at server farms located on site at CERN and around the world. Apart from the initial cost of setting up an eective server farm the cost of power consumption and cooling are signicant. The proposed solution to reduce costs without losing performance is to make use of ARM R processors found in nearly all smartphones and tablet computers. Their low power consumption, low cost and respectable processing speed makes them an interesting choice for future large scale parallel data processing centers. Benchmarks on the Cortex TM -A series of ARM processors including the HPL and PMBW suites will be presented as well as preliminary results from the PROOF benchmark in the context of high energy physics will be analyzed.