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Performance Visualization
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Parallel Programs


Logfile Format

Over the years, several logfile formats have been developed for postmortem performance visualization. The following list has the logfile formats arranged in reverse chronological order of development. The format has evolved from an event-based logging mechanism used in ALOG, BLOG, and CLOG to a state-based logging mechanism used in SLOG-1, which has further evolved to the drawable-based logging mechanism employed in SLOG-2.

SLOG

A scalable logfile format. SLOG addresses the data-scalability issue of the logfile for visualization. It is very easy to generate a large trace file for a simple parallel program. Typical graphical viewer like Jumpshot-2, which views CLOG file, requires the whole logfile to be parsed and stored in the physical memory. This requirement renders the performance of Jumphsot-2 slow or even useless for even moderately sized logfile. SLOG allows the viewer to read only portion(s) of the logfile for visualization. One of the main goals of SLOG is to help users locate interesting portion(s) of the logfile for analysis.

SLOG-2

A drawable-based logging format. SLOG-2 is the reiteration of the SLOG effort. Based on the experience while developing SLOG-1, SLOG-2 addresses data-scalability issue again by a complete redesign of the logfile format. The new design allows the logfile creation to be an one-pass mechanism through elimination of pseudo-records. This one-pass mechanism not only scalably reduces the time taken to generate the logfile but also makes the file creation process much more robust. Except in well-behaved MPI program (i.e. all communications finish in relatively short time, few outstanding communications at any one time during the run), SLOG-1 may require end-users a vague understanding of SLOG-1 format to do some trial and error to determine the right parameters for the SLOG-1 file before file can be generated . Being able to eliminate pseudo-records, SLOG-2 file can be generated easily without any end-users' knowledge of the logfile format for almost any communication patterns. Also, SLOG-2 usually deals with very large trace files. Therefore, the one-pass logfile creation mechanism is a very important goal for SLOG-2.

The new design employs the concept of Bounding Box, often used in graphic design, to solve the data-scalability problem. SLOG-2 categorizes the objects in the logfile along the time-axis of the program into a binary tree of the Bounding Boxes. (The hierachical structure of SLOG-2 is not limited to binary tree, but binary tree possesses ideal structure for optimal visual performance.) In addition, the tree structure of SLOG-2 also allows the logfile to be renormalized to provide a better level-of-detail support at the logfile level. The renormalized object is called preview drawable in the SLOG-2 context. These objects reduce the amount of data processed by the visualization tool at low-resolution display while still provide an overall high-level graphical description of whole logfile. The enhanced SLOG-2 format allows tight coupling between the logfile format and the zoomable graphical user interface offered by Jumpshot-4.

SLOG-2 is an ongoing research project. An initial implementation is available in slog2sdk. Currently, there are 3 different formats that can be converted to SLOG-2 format: MPE's CLOG, MPICH2's RLOG and AIX/UTE trace formats. Anyone who is interested in converting other native trace formats to SLOG-2 needs to implement TRACE-API specified in the SLOG-2 draft document. So the convertion tool, traceTOslog2, shipped with slog2sdk can be used to generate SLOG-2 file from the native trace format. The most updated TRACE-API definitions can be found in slog2sdk distribution as well.

SLOG-1

A state-based logging format. SLOG-1 is the first iteration of the SLOG effort. The scalability of SLOG-1 comes from separating all states in the logfile into continuous frames of data along the time axis of the program. Each is small enough to be processed efficiently by the display program, Jumpshot-3. States and arrows that cross the frame boundary are duplicated in each frame that has the partial object. Duplicated states or arrows are called pseudo-records. They allow states and arrows to be shown leaving the earlier frame and then entering into later frame seamlessly when two adjacent frames of data are compared side by side. However, creation of pseudo-records also demands the SLOG-1 generation to be a two-pass mechanism. SLOG-1 and Jumpshot-3 represent a cornerstone in postmortem performance visualization because they demonstrate the possibility of visualization of a logfile in the gigabyte range and still provide reasonable performance when running the viewer on a desktop PC. To help user to navigate such a large amount of information, simple statistics of state activities are collected by SLOG-1 and displayed by the Preview Window of Jumpshot-3 to enable users to locate interesting behavior of the parallel program.

SLOG-1 is distributed with MPE, which is in turn distributed with MPICH. SLOG-1 is located under directory mpich/mpe/slog-api.

There is an API for using SLOG-1. It consists of input and output APIs for SLOG-1. An example of how to use the API can be found at mpe/slog-api/src/ts_incrEQendtime_resfnEQyes.c.

CLOG

A event-based logging format. A descendant of ALOG and BLOG, Its corresponding viewer is Jumpshot-2. A more complete description of CLOG can be found in the section Producing Logfiles of the jumpshot-2 paper.

The CLOG package is distributed as part of MPE, which is also distributed under MPICH.

BLOG

An older event-based logging format. A descendant of ALOG and An event-based logging format. An intermediate logfile format betweem ALOG and CLOG, it was used internally in PETSc's ntools.

ALOG

The original event-based logging format. A detailed description of ALOG can be found here. Its corresponding viewer is either Upshot or Nupshot.

The ALOG package is distributed as part of MPE, which is also distributed under MPICH.


Logging Mechanism

event-based logging

Basic logging entity has only one timestamp. Every incident during the course of the program is described by one event.

state-based logging

Basic logging entity consists of two timestamps, beginning and ending timestamps. A state is described by at least two events, one for beginning event and one for ending event. Some intermediate events may take place between the beginning and ending timestamps.

drawable-based logging

Basic logging entity describes a complete graphical object. In general, a drawable is described by one or more state-like entities, plus some events if necessary.

Renormalization

The concept of renormalization group transformation is often used in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. In physics, renormalization group transformation refers to coarse-graining transformation followed by a rescaling of some system components or parameters. Since the creation of a SLOG-2 tree can be viewed a coarse-graining process, it is conceivable that rescaling can be done easily.

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