How to Benchmark Your HPC Cluster’s Performance

Benchmarking your HPC cluster helps evaluate its computational capabilities, pinpoint bottlenecks, and validate performance optimizations. Here’s how to benchmark effectively:

Step 1: Select Appropriate Benchmarks

• Linpack: For CPU computational performance (Floating Point Operations).
• STREAM: For memory bandwidth testing.
• IOzone or FIO: For disk performance.
• HPCG: For a more realistic measure of HPC application performance.

Step 2: Prepare the Benchmarking Environment

• Ensure cluster nodes are idle and free from running jobs.
• Standardize configurations (compilers, libraries, scheduler settings).

Step 3: Run Benchmark Tests

• Linpack Example:
• mpirun -np <num_procs> ./xhpl
• STREAM Example:
• ./stream
• FIO Example:
• fio --name=benchmark --size=1G --rw=write --bs=1M

Step 4: Monitor and Collect Data

• Collect metrics like FLOPS, bandwidth, latency, and throughput.
• Use monitoring tools (Ganglia, Nagios) to capture detailed system metrics during benchmark runs.

Step 5: Analyze and Interpret Results

• Compare results against theoretical peak performance and previously established baselines.
• Identify bottlenecks (CPU, memory, network, I/O).

Step 6: Document and Report

• Clearly document benchmark procedures, configurations, and results.
• Communicate findings and implications for optimization to users and administrators.

Step 7: Iterate and Optimize

• Apply findings to optimize cluster performance.
• Regularly re-run benchmarks to monitor performance improvements.

Benchmarking ensures your HPC cluster remains optimized, reliable, and ready to support demanding computational workloads.