Credits for SPEC MPI2007

Last updated: $Date: 2009-12-01 10:28:43 -0500 (Tue, 01 Dec 2009) $ by $Author: keeper $
(To check for possible updates to this document, please see http://www.spec.org/mpi2007/Docs/ )

Creating a suite of source code benchmarks to provide a consistent, comparative measure of MPI and CPU-intensive performance is not simple. The challenges are numerous, for example:

locating meaningful programs;
ensuring that they port to numerous environments;
defining rules to govern how the programs are compiled, run and reported;
developing a toolset to help enforce these rules while still making things easy to use; and
defining a process by which decisions can be made amongst the group working on the project.

And in the end, you hope you have something that is fair, relevant, and understandable, that will address technology for a period of years.

Such is the case with SPEC MPI2007, which is a new benchmark. The new benchmark suite:

Provides a variety of applications and application areas included in the suite.
Uses application source code that is significantly complex.
Uses up to 2GB (aprox) memory per rank at run time. (See the System Requirements document for more details).
Improves the tools for running and using the suite compared with previous HPG benchmarks.
Defines the run rules.
Provides documentation.

All of this is due to the efforts of a large team of people from around the world, that SPEC would like to thank (with apologies and thanks to those who may not be listed).

Program Authors and Contributors

SPEC MPI benchmarks are based on real-world applications (rather than using loop kernels or artificial stress tests). We therefore thank the authors of those real-world applications.

Thank you to the many participants of the "SPEC MPI Benchmark Search Program" and, in particular, the authors that contributed programs that were made part of the suite:

MPI2007 programs
`104.milc`	Steven Gottlieb
`107.leslie3d`	Christopher Stone and Suresh Menon
`113.GemsFDTD`	Ulf Andersson
`115.fds4`	Kevin McGrattan
`121.pop2`	Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
`122.tachyon`	John E. Stone
`125.RAxML`	Alexandros Stamatakis
`126.lammps`	Sandia, Steve Plimpton
`127.wrf2`	See Open Source Credits below
`128.GAPgeofem`	Kengo Nakajima
`129.tera_tf`	Bertrand Meltz
`130.socorro`	Developed by a number of contributors from Sandia National Labs, Vanderbilt University, and Wake Forest University. Our main point of contact was Alan Tackett.
`132.zeusmp2`	John Hayes and Michael L. Norman
`137.lu`	See Open Source Credits below
`142.dmilc`	Steven Gottlieb
`142.dleslie`	Christopher Stone and Suresh Menon
`145.lGemsFDTD`	Ulf Andersson
`147.l2wrf2`	See Open Source Credits below

Thank you to the original authors of, and contributors to, open-source programs that were adapted by SPEC for inclusion in the suite. These programs include:

127.wrf2	127.wrf2 is derived from 481.wrf which is based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model, which has 5 development teams and a cooperative effort spanning multiple agencies, labs, and universities. Also, 127.wrf2 uses NetCDF, which has many contributors.
137.lu	based on the LU program from the NPB suite of benchmarks.

For more information regarding the SPEC benchmarks, including information about other contributors, see the documentation in the individual benchmarks directories.

SPEC

We would also like to thank:

SPEC management, who provided us with resources, and kept the SPEC HPG Subcommittee on their toes:
- Walter Bays - President, SPEC
- Kaivalya Dixit - Long-time President, and Guiding Light of SPEC
- Larry Gray - Treasurer, SPEC
The SPEC office, who were the ones who really provided us with the resources:
- Dianne Rice - Administration
- Kathy Powers - Administration, including event coordination for "benchathons": SPEC's face-to-face gatherings to port the benchmarks.
- Cathy Sandifer, Jason Glick - Webmasters
- Stephanie Moore - Customer Service
- Bob Cramblitt - Press Relations

Benchmark Project Leaders and Developers

Most importantly, thank you to the people who sweated through technical details and porting issues, debated their view points vigorously, and were willing to drive issues to conclusion. Without these people this benchmark suite would truly not exist.

A benchmark "Project Leader" serves as the focal point for porting a program to all the tested platforms, improves the stability of the code, removes code that SPEC does not want to test (such as platform-specific extensions), writes documentation, consults with both the author and the users, and generally tries to give each benchmark its best chance at making it through SPEC's testing process. Thank you to these project leaders:

John Baron, Carl Ponder, Hideki Saito, Ron Lieberman, Kaivalya Dixit, Huiyu Feng, Chris Parrott, Brian Whitney, Matthijs VanWaveren, Kalyan Kumaran and Jace Mogill, each of whom served as the SPEC "Project Leader" for one or more of the benchmark candidates that was evaluated by SPEC.
Cloyce Spradling, who tirelessly served as productive Toolsmaster, Cloyce also assisted every other project leader.

In addition to the above, many other people from the member companies assisted with benchmark development, including but not limited to Matt Colgrove, Alexey Starovoytov, Joseph Robichaux, Alexander Isaev, Mark Debbage, Hakon Bugge, Asmund Ostvold, John Benninghoff, Gary Applegate, Joshua Mora.

Analysis, Tools, Testing, and Documentation

Analysis of the candidate benchmarks was a substantial task. Contributors to profiling and other forms of analysis included: John Baron, Carl Ponder, Hideki Saito, Ron Lieberman, Kaivalya Dixit, Tom Elken, Chris Parrott, Brian Whitney, Matthijs VanWaveren, Mattias Mueller.

Cloyce Spradling is the primary author of the SPEC MPI2007 toolset.

Carl Ponder is the primary author of the documentation.

Behind the scenes

Finally, we thank all of the people behind the scenes in the compiler groups, architecture groups and performance groups who supported their work for SPEC at their respective companies.

The Bottom Line

Thank you!

Brian Whitney, Release Manager, SPEC MPI2007
Mattias Mueller, Vice-Chair, SPEC HPG Subcommittee
Matthijs VanWaveren, Secretary, SPEC HPG Committee
Ron Lieberman, Past Chair, SPEC HPG Committee

Kalyan Kumaran, Chair, SPEC HPG Committee