Assessment of LIKWID Tools on the Fujitsu A64FX ARM processor at NRL, DC

Optimal performance requires knowledge of the architecture as well an awareness of the cache, thread, and non-uniform memory access (NUMA) topologies. LIKWID (“Like I know what I do”) is a set of command line tools, library and API useful for system and application performance analysis. Originally designed to support x86 processors, the LIKIWID toolset has since been extended to support a wider variety of processors including ARM processors such as Godzilla’s at NRL, DC (Fujitsu A64FX ARM processors).

With an aim to be simple, extensible and portable application for the GNU operating system [1], LIKWID is open-source code and available on GitHub and Spack. Developed largely Thomas Grüber, LIKWID tools are currently maintained by the Software&Tools division at the Erlangen National High Performance Computing Center (NHR@FAU) in Germany.

LIKWID tools include:

  • likwid-topology – Print thread, cache and NUMA topology
  • likwid-pin – Pin a threaded application outside of the code
  • likwid-peftctr – Measure performance counters
  • likwid-bench – Micro-benchmarking tool and environment

This talk will discuss the usefulness these LIKWID tools in providing performance insights on the Godzilla and its respective processors. Topics addressed will include LIKWID’s effectiveness in probing hardware topologies, thread-core affinity enforcement, performance counter measurements, and micro-benchmarking will be addressed. A comparison between LIKWID and widely used Tuning and Analysis Utilities (TAU) profiler results on the analysis of the performance of an open-source code, HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM), on Godzilla will also be discussed.

References: [1] Thomas Gruber, likwid-bench: assembly microkernel benchmark suite, https://github.com/RRZE-HPC/likwid/wiki, last accessed

PRESENTER

Haines, Karen G.
karen.haines@gdit.com
760-453-3009

General Dynamics IT

CO-AUTHORS

Eller, Paul R.
Paul.Eller@gdit.com

Khine, YuYu
yuyu.khine.civ@us.navy.mil

Rosenberg, Robert 0.
robert.o.rosenberg.civ@us.navy.mil

Obenschain, Keith
keith.obenshain.civ@us.navy.mil

CATEGORY

Test & Evaluation usage for HPC applications

SYSTEMS USED

HPCMP Systems Used: Godzilla at NRL, DC

SECRET

No