A Survey of Communication Performance Models for High-Performance Computing

Abstract

This survey aims to present the state of the art in analytic communication performance models, providing sufficiently detailed descriptions of particularly noteworthy efforts. Modeling the cost of communications in computer clusters is an important and challenging problem. It provides insights into the design of the communication pattern of parallel scientific applications and mathematical kernels and sets a clear ground for optimization of their deployment in the increasingly complex high-performance computing infrastructure. The survey provides background information on how different performance models represent the underlying platform and shows the evolution of these models over time from early clusters of single-core processors to present-day multi-core and heterogeneous platforms. Prospective directions for future research in the area of analytic communication performance modeling conclude the survey.