An evaluation of the state of time synchronization on leadership class supercomputers
Terry Jones, George Ostrouchov, Gregory A. Koenig, Oscar H. Mondragón, Patrick G. Bridges · Concurrency and Computation Practice and Experience · 2017
Summary We present a detailed examination of time agreement characteristics for nodes within extreme‐scale parallel computers. Using a software tool we introduce in this paper, we quantify attributes of clock skew among nodes in three representative high‐performance computers sited at three national laboratories. Our measurements detail the statistical properties of time agreement among nodes and how time agreement drifts over typical application execution durations. We discuss the implications of our measurements, why the current state of the field is inadequate, and propose strategies to address observed shortcomings.