Computer Aided Engineering of Cluster Computers

There are many scientific and engineering applications that require the resources of a dedicated supercomputer: drug design, weather prediction, simulating vehicle crashes, fluid dynamics simulations of aircraft or even consumer products. Cluster supercomputers can leverage commodity parts with standard interfaces that allow them to be used interchangeably to build supercomputers customized for these and other applications. However, the best design for one application is not necessarily the best design for other applications. Supercomputer design is challenging, but this problem is harder due to the huge range of possible configurations, volatile component availability and pricing, and constraints on available power, cooling, and floor space. Cluster design rules (CDR) is a computer-aided engineering tool that uses resource constraints and application performance models to identify the few best designs among the trillions of designs that could be constructed using parts from a given database. It uses a branch-and-bound strategy based on cluster design principles that can eliminate many inferior designs from the search without evaluating them. For the millions of designs that remain, CDR measures fitness by one of several user-specified application performance models. New application performance models can be added by means of a programming interface. This paper details the concepts and mechanisms inside CDR and shows how it facilitates model-based engineering of custom clusters.