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Horst Schwichtenberg, Steffen Claus Win HPC User, Karlsruhe, 31.03.2011

MS HPC Integration von Excel und eigenen Anwendungen mit WCF

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SPEC MPI2007 (32 cores) SPECmpiM_base2007

Windows Linux % 7.44 7.42 0.2%

000 002 004 006 008 010 012 014

104.milc

107.leslie3d

113.GemsFDTD

115.fds4

121.pop2

122.tachyon

126.lamps

127.wrf2

128.GAPgeofem

129.tera_tf

130.socorro

132.zeusmp2

137.lu

Ratio - better →

Windows

Linux

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SPEC MPI2007 (64 cores)

,00 5,00 10,00 15,00 20,00 25,00

104.milc

107.leslie3d

113.GemsFDTD

115.fds4

121.pop2

122.tachyon

126.lamps

127.wrf2

128.GAPgeofem

129.tera_tf

130.socorro

132.zeusmp2

137.lu

Ratio - better →

Windows

Linux

SPECmpiM_base2007 Windows Linux %

14.26 14.24 0.2%

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SPEC MPI2007 (128 cores) SPECmpiM_base2007

Windows Linux % 25.81 24.94 3.37

000 005 010 015 020 025 030 035 040 045 050

104.milc

107.leslie3d

113.GemsFDTD

115.fds4

121.pop2

122.tachyon

126.lamps

127.wrf2

128.GAPgeofem

129.tera_tf

130.socorro

132.zeusmp2

137.lu

Ratio - better →

Windows (peak)

Linux

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Agenda

n  1.) Parallel Excel: Utilizing HPC resources

n How to use? When to use?

n Live demo

n  2.) WCF as interface to HPC resources

n Example: Industrial optimization

n Live demo

n  Conclusion

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Parallel Excel – Best practices

§  Existing UDFs/XLL?

§  C/C++ programming skills, small changes required

§  Existing workbook?

§  Excel VBA (macro) development, apply macro framework

§  None of both?

§  Write own HPC services (WCF) in any .Net CLR supported language

§  Use Excel as front end

CLR: Common Language Runtime

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Parallel Excel – User defined function (UDF)

§  UDFs are function extensions to Excel, (Visual studio C, C# built XLL libraries)

§  UDFs programms use an Excel API (e.g. xlAutoOpen, Excel12, …)

§  Notify Excel of so-called „cluster safe“ functions by changing the function signature (add „&“ to the end of the string)

§  XLL is deployed to cluster; XLLs are loaded by a XLLContainerService (WCF service contained in HPC Server 2008 R2 installation)

§  „cluster safe“ XLLs can still be used locally (on/off switch in Excel options)

Remark: Threadsafe = $

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Public Network Private Network

Failover Head node

1. User creates session

3. Provide WCF Broker node as

EPR

5. Requests 4. Client connects to Broker and submits

requests

7. Responses return to client

Excel Client

6. Responses

UDF: Excel Client – Cluster Interaction

Head node

2 a). Session Manager assigns WCF Broker node

for client job

WCF Broker Compute nodes

2 b). Start service instances

UDF

XLLContainer

HpcServiceHost

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UDF: Live demonstration – Longstaff Schwartz

American-Asian Options with Monte Carlo

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UDF: Requirements, Considerations and Restrictions

§  Requirements:

§  WCF broker node on cluster; UDF XLL deployed to cluster; Excel 2010 on client; HPC Pack 2008 R2 client utilities on client; Developer: Visual Studio and Excel 2010 XLL SDK

§  Considerations:

§  Overhead through communication between local node, WCF broker node, compute nodes, XLLContainer service etc. à Applicability depends on ratio of runtime and overhead

§  Restrictions:

§  UDF must contain independent calculations, must not depend on input of other cells; no calls to access the spreadsheet; no pop-ups; no shared memory or static variables; XLL is loaded and started governed by the XLLContainerService

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Parallel Excel - Workbook §  VBA code; apply Visual basic macros

§  HPC_Initialize: clear spreadsheet, and init stuff

§  HPC_Partition: return value is used as input for HPC_Execute; collects parameters for a single calculation step

§  HPC_Execute: one calculation step; can be executed on the cluster; return value is used as input for HPC_Merge

§  HPC_Merge: processes result of single calculation step; update of spreadsheet, writing of logfile etc.

§  HPC_Finalize: called after HPC_Partition has returned null

§  HPC_Error: …

§  HPCexcel client class reference (part of MS HPC client utilities)

§  Iterative calculation of (Partition à Execute à Merge …)

§  Requires Excel on compute nodes

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Workbook: Calculation steps

 

Partition Execute Merge Initialize Finalize

 

Error

client node client

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Public Network Private Network

Failover Head node

1. User creates session

3. Provide WCF Broker node as

EPR

5. Requests 4. Client connects to Broker and submits

requests

7. Responses return to client

Excel Client

6. Responses

Workbook: Excel Client – Cluster Interaction

Head node

2 a). Session Manager assigns WCF Broker node

for client job

WCF Broker Compute nodes

2 b). Start service instances

HpcServiceHost

ExcelService

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Workbook: Live demonstration – Convertible Pricing

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Workbook: Requirements, Considerations and Restrictions

§  Requirements:

§  WCF broker node on cluster; Excel 2010 installed on all compute nodes; Workbook deployed to shared directory; Excel 2010 on client, HPC Pack 2008 R2 client utilities on client.

§  Considerations:

§  Useful, if callbacks and lookups to the spreadsheets are needed (table lookup, multiple cells as input)

§  If calculations change over time; easier update than UDFs (require recompilation)

§  Restrictions:

§  Iterative, independent calculations

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UDF vs. Workbook

Cluster-safe UDF §  Pro

§  Easy to „cluster enable“ existing UDFs

§  Easy to enable and disable

§  Well-suited for single, atomic calculations

§  No Excel on node

§  Contra §  No callbacks to Excel sheet, no

pop-up dialogs

§  Changes to function require recompilation

Workbook §  Pro

§  Pop-up dialogs possible

§  Flexible VBA development

§  Can use resources such as DBs, files, other workbooks

§  Excel on node

§  Contra §  Manual problem partitioning

§  …

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Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

§  Microsoft API for SOA applications

§  Part of the .Net Framework

§  Supports most common SOA technologies:

§  WS-*, WSDL, SOAP

§  Security, Transactions, Bindings (HTTPS, NetTCP, etc.),…

§  Why did we choose WCF for our industrial application (see later)?

§  WCF can be easily integrated into existing code

§  does not restrict the developer to use a specific language (if WSDL and XSD descriptions of the interface are available)

§  Concerning reachability (firewall issues) this is the easiest solution

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Parallel Excel – Excel as front end for custom WCF services First: Create a Service from your Application (eg. Numerical program e.g. Monte Carlo) Second: Create in Excel a Clint Application (Workbook to show results) Service:

§  Service Contract:

   [ServiceContract]          public  interface  IExampleService      {              [OperationContract]              int  ExampleCalculate(  …  );      }  

1.  Step: create a .net service (needs .net 3.5) by an .NET interface as starting point 2. Make it a WCF service contract anotate the interface itself with [ServiceContract] + any method

Namespace ServiceLibrary { {public interface IExampleService {string Echo(string msg)}}

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Parallel Excel – Excel as front end for custom WCF services §  SvcUtil:

§  Service Usage (create a session and obtain service endpoint):

SvcUtil.exe  ExampleService.dll  à  creates  wsdl  und  xsd  of  the  service  SvcUtil.exe  *.wsdl  *.xsd  /async  /language:C#  /out:ExampleServiceProxy.cs  

public  void  Calculate(…)  {        SessionStartInfo  info  =  new  SessionStartInfo(“headnode“,“ExampleService“);        …        using  (Session  session  =  Session.CreateSession(info))        {              ExampleServiceClient  proxy  =  new  ExampleServiceClient(binding,  session.epr);                                      

 proxy.BeginExampleCalculate(…,  ExampleServiceCallback,  asyncState);        }  }  private  void  ExampleServiceCallback(IAsyncResult  result)  {        state  =  result.AsyncState;  //to  identify  return  value        values  =  proxy.EndCalculate(result);  //the  real  result  }  

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Parallel Excel – Excel as front end for custom WCF services

§  Config file (copied to HpcSercviceRegistration folder on headnode):

§  Cluster deployment:

<configuration>  

…  

<service  assembly="C:\Services\ExampleService.dll“  contract=„ExampleService.IExampleService“  type=„ExampleService.ExampleService"  />  

…  </configuration>  

clusrun  /exclude:headnode  robocopy  „<your_local_service_dir>"  "C:\Services"  /MIR  >  NUL  clusrun  /exclude:headnode  robocopy  „<your_local_service_reg_dir>"  "%CCP_HOME%\ServiceRegistration"  /MIR  >  NUL  

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Industrial application

§  Solves optimization problem: „Placing pieces on fabrics/leather“

§  Optimization contrained by: size of fabrics, shape of pieces, quality of leather, etc.

§  Benefit of automatic optimization: minimize waste, faster results (compared to humans)

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Automatic placing of patterns on leather hides

§  Map a set of tiles (of car seats, sofas etc.) onto a leather hide

§  quality of leather varies (e.g. holes)

§  à additional quality constraints

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The idea: use remote HPC resources for solver

§  So far: User of application runs the software localyà problem solver runs locally on the users machine

§  Idea: Extract optimization algorithm and run it on HPC cluster

§  Why bother?

§  MPI-version of the algorithm exists à exploitation of cluster resources, faster results with even better efficiency

§  Advantages for software vendor: more sophisticated accounting models (pay per computation etc.),

§  Advantages for the software developer: straightforward and direct update of the optimization code

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Company LAN

Interaction between Application and HPC Cluster

SCAI Private Network

Compute nodes Head node Service

Provider

Client

Authentication

3. Jobs are submitted to

HPC scheduler

4. Jobs

1. web service DLL computes

remote

6. Results

5. Results and Accounting

2. Authentication and Authorization

Accounting

Internet

Products

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Conclusion

§  Excel: UDF and workbook

§  easy to use HPC resource without special knowledge

§  Excel as interface for own applications

§  nice and easy to use frontend for HPC application – wrap your application as service

§  WCF as integration

§  access your HPC application or integrate it in your environment

Thank you !

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Thank you!