Performance Analysis of a High Energy Colliding Beam Simulation Code on Four HPC Architectures

• Main Authors: Hongzhang Shan, Ji Qiang, Strohmaier, E., Yelick, K.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analytical models; Colliding beam devices; Computational modeling; Computer architecture; Elementary particles; Energy consumption; High performance computing; Particle beams; Performance analysis; Power system modeling
• ISSN: 0190-3918; 2332-5690
• DOI: 10.1109/ICPP.2006.59

The high energy colliders are essential to study the inner structure of nuclear and elementary particles. A parallel particle simulation code, BeamBeam3D, has been developed and actively used to model the beam dynamics and to optimize the performance of these colliders. In this paper, we analyzed the performance characteristics of BeamBeam3D on four leading high performance computing architectures, including a massive parallel system, a commodity-based cluster, an advanced vector platform, and a novel architecture focused on low power consumption and high density. We examine how to partition the workload among the processors to effectively use the computing resources, whether these platforms exhibit similar performance bottlenecks and how to address them, whether some platforms perform substantially better than others, and finally, the implications of BeamBeam3D for the design of the next generation supercomputer architectures