This publication mainly provides information about tuning application programs on the SGI Altix UV series systems running the Linux operating system. Application programs includes Fortran and C programs written with the Intel-provided compilers on SGI Linux systems. Some parts of this manual are also applicable to other SGI X86-64 based systems, such as, the SGI Altix ICE and SGI Altix XE series systems.
This document does not include information about configuring or tuning your system. For details about those topics, see the SGI Altix UV Systems Linux Configuration and Operations Guide.
This guide is written for experienced programmers, familiar with Linux commands and with either the C or Fortran programming languages. The focus in this document is on achieving the highest possible performance by exploiting the features of your SGI Altix system. The material assumes that you know the basics of software engineering and that you are familiar with standard methods and data structures. If you are new to programming or software design, this guide will not be of use to you.
The following publications provide information that can supplement the information in this document.
The following documents provide information about Linux implementations on SGI systems:
SGI Altix UV Systems Linux Configuration and Operations Guide
Provides information on how to perform system configuration and operations for SGI Altix UV series systems.
Linux Resource Administration Guide
Provides a reference for people who manage the operation of SGI servers and contains information needed in the administration of various system resource management features such as Array Services, Cpusets on Linux, NUMA tools, and the Cpuset library functions.
SGI Performance Suite 1.1 Start Here
Provides information about the SGI Performance Suite 1.1 release.
Message Passing Toolkit (MPT) User's Guide
Describes industry-standard message passing protocol optimized for SGI computers. Chapter 7, “Run-time Tuning” discusses ways in which the you can tune the run-time environment to improve the performance of an MPI message passing application on SGI computers. None of these ways involve application code changes.
See the release notes which are shipped with your system for a list of other documents that are available. All books are available on the Tech Pubs Library at http://docs.sgi.com .
For the latest information about software and documentation in this release, see the release notes that are in a file named README.TXT that is available in /docs directory on the CD.
The following documents provide information about Altix system hardware.
SGI Altix UV 1000 System User's Guide
Provides an overview of the architecture and describes the major components of the SGI Altix UV 1000 series systems. It also describes the standard procedures for powering up and powering down the system, provides basic troubleshooting information, and includes important safety and regulatory specifications.
SGI Altix UV 100 System User's Guide
Provides an overview of the architecture and describes the major components of the SGI Altix UV 100 series systems. It also describes the standard procedures for powering up and powering down the system, provides basic troubleshooting information, and includes important safety and regulatory specifications.
SGI Altix ICE 8200 Series System Hardware User's Guide
Provides an overview of the architecture and describes the major components of the SGI Altix ICE 8200 series systems. It also describes the standard procedures for powering up and powering down the system, provides basic troubleshooting information, and includes important safety and regulatory specifications.
SGI Altix ICE 8400 Series System Hardware User's Guide
Provides an overview of the architecture and describes the major components of the SGI Altix ICE 8400 series systems. It also describes the standard procedures for powering up and powering down the system, provides basic troubleshooting information, and includes important safety and regulatory specifications.
 | Note: SGI has a large number of compute platforms. For a complete list of current SGI software and hardware manuals, see the SGI Performance Suite 1.1 Start Here available at http://docs.sgi.com. |
The following documentation is provided for the compilers and performance tools which run on SGI Linux systems:
http://sourceware.org/gdb/documentation/
GDB: The GNU Project Debugger website with documentation, such as, Debugging with GDB, GDB User Manual, and so on.
http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/perflib/219780.htm ; documentation for Intel compiler products can be downloaded from this website.
Intel Software Network page with links to Intel documentation, such as, Intel Professional Edition Compilers, Intel Thread Checker, Intel VTune Performance Analyzer , and various Intel cluster software solutions.
Intel provides detailed application tuning information including the Intel Xeon processor 5500 at this location http://developer.intel.com/Assets/PDF/manual/248966.pdf.
Intel provides specific tuning information tutorial for Nehalem (Intel Xeon 5500) at http://software.intel.com/sites/webinar/tuning-your-application-for-nehalem/ .
Intel provides information for Westmere (Intel Xeon 5600) at http://www.intel.com/itcenter/products/xeon/5600/index.htm
http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/vtune/239144.htm
Intel Software Network page with information specific to Intel VTune Performance Analyzer including links to documentation.
Intel provides information about the Intel Performance Tuning Utility (PTU) at http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-performance-tuning-utility/ .
Information about the OpenMP Standard can be found at http://openmp.org/wp/.
The OpenMP API specification for parallel programming website is found here.
The following conventions are used in this documentation:
| [ ] | Brackets enclose optional portions of a command or directive line. | |
| command | This fixed-space font denotes literal items such as commands, files, routines, path names, signals, messages, and programming language structures. | |
| ... | Ellipses indicate that a preceding element can be repeated. | |
| user input | This bold, fixed-space font denotes literal items that the user enters in interactive sessions. (Output is shown in nonbold, fixed-space font.) | |
| variable | Italic typeface denotes variable entries and words or concepts being defined. | |
| manpage(x) | Man page section identifiers appear in parentheses after man page names. |
You can obtain SGI documentation as follows:
See the SGI Technical Publications Library at http://docs.sgi.com. Various formats are available. This library contains the most recent and most comprehensive set of online books, release notes, man pages, and other information.
You can view release notes on your system by accessing the README.txt file for the product. This is usually located in the /usr/share/doc/productname directory, although file locations may vary.
You can view man pages by typing man title at a command line.
If you have comments about the technical accuracy, content, or organization of this publication, contact SGI. Be sure to include the title and document number of the publication with your comments. (Online, the document number is located in the front matter of the publication. In printed publications, the document number is located at the bottom of each page.)
You can contact SGI in any of the following ways:
Send e-mail to the following address:
techpubs@sgi.com
Contact your customer service representative and ask that an incident be filed in the SGI incident tracking system.
Send mail to the following address:
SGI Technical Publications 46600 Landing Parkway Fremont, CA 94538
SGI values your comments and will respond to them promptly.