See LICENSE for licensing information.

This suite contains a number of kernel operations, called Parallel Research Kernels, plus a simple build environment intended for Linux.

These programs must not be used as benchmarks. They are operations to explore features of a hardware platform, but they do not define fixed problems that can be used to rank systems. Furthermore they have not been optimimzed for the features of any particular system.

Note that while our nstream operations are based on the well known STREAM benchmark by John D. McCalpin, we modified the source code and do not follow the run-rules associated with this benchmark. Hence, according to the rules defined in the STREAM license (see clause 3b), you must never report the results of our nstream operations as official "STREAM Benchmark" results. The results must be clearly labled whenever they are published. Examples of proper labelling include:

  "tuned STREAM benchmark results" 
  "based on a variant of the STREAM benchmark code" 

Other comparable, clear, and reasonable labelling is acceptable.

To build the codes the user needs to make certain changes by editing text files. Assuming the source tree is untarred in directory HOME, the following file needs to be copied to HOME/common/make.defs and edited.

HOME/common/make.defs.in -- This file specifies the names of the C compiler (CC), and of the MPI (Message Passing Interface) compiler MPICC or compile script. If MPI is not going to be used, the user can ignore the value of MPICC. The compilers should already be in your path. That is, if you define CC=icc, then typing which icc should show a valid path where that compiler is installed. Special instructions for building and running codes using Charm++, Grappa, OpenSHMEM, or Fine-Grain MPI are in README.special.

The suite of kernels currently has complete parallel implementations in OpenMP, MPI, Adaptive MPI and Fine-Grain MPI. There is also a SERIAL reference implementation. The suite is currently being extended to include Charm++, MPI+OpenMP, OpenSHMEM, UPC, and Grappa, as well as two new variations of MPI:

1. MPI with one-sided communications (MPIRMA)
2. MPI with direct use of shared memory inside coherency domains (MPISHM) These extensions are not yet complete.

To build all available kernels of a certain version, type in the root directory:

The global make process uses a single set of optimization flags for all kernels. For more control, the user should consider individual makes (see below), carefully choosing the right parameters in each Makefile. If a a single set of optimization flags different from the default is desired, the command line can be adjusted: make all<version> default_opt_flags=<list of optimization flags>

The global make process uses some defaults for the Branch kernel (see Makefile in that directory). These can be overridden by adjusting the command line: make all<version> matrix_rank=<n> number_of_functions=<m> Note that no new values for matrix_rank or number_of_functions will be used unless a make veryclean has been issued.

Descend into the desired sub-tree and cd to the kernel(s) of interest. Each kernel has its own Makefile. There are a number of parameters that determine the behavior of the kernel that need to be known at compile time. These are explained succinctly in the Makefile itself. Edit the Makefile to activate certain parameters, and/or to set their values.

Typing make without parameters in each leaf directory will prompt the user for the correct parameter syntax. Once the code has been built, typing the name of the executable without any parameters will prompt the user for the correct parameter syntax.

After the desired kernels have been built, they can be tested by executing scripts in the 'scripts' subdirectory from the root of the kernels package. Currently two types of run scripts are supported. scripts/small: tests only very small examples that should complete in just a few seconds. This merely tests functionality of kernels and installed runtimes scripts/wide: tests examples that will take up most memory on a single node with 64 GB of memory.

Only a few parameters can be changed globally; for rigorous testing, the user should run each kernel individually, carefully choosing the right parameters. This may involve editing the individual Makefiles and rerunning the kernels.

make all default_opt_flags="-O2" "matrix_rank=7" "number_of_functions=200" 
./scripts/small/runopenmp
./scripts/small/runmpi1
./scripts/wide/runserial
./scripts/small/runcharm++
./scripts/wide/runmpiopenmp

To exercise all kernels, type

./scripts/small/runall
./scripts/wide/runall