High performance computational steering of physical simulations

Abstract

Computational steering allows researchers to monitor and manage long running, resource intensive applications at runtime. Limited research has addressed high performance computational steering. High performance in computational steering is necessary for three reasons. First, a computational steering system must act intelligently at runtime in order to minimize its perturbation of the target application. Second, monitoring information extracted from the target must be analyzed and forwarded to the user in a timely fashion to allow fast decision making. Finally, steering actions must be executed with low latency to prevent undesirable feedback. The paper describes the use of language constructs, coined ACSL, within a system for computational steering. The steering system interprets ACSL statements and optimizes the requests for steering and monitoring. Specifically, the steering system, called Magellan, utilizes ACSL to intelligently control multithreaded, asynchronous steering servers that cooperatively steer applications. These results compare favorably to our previous Progress steering system.