GPU Acceleration of an Established Solar MHD Code using OpenACC. (May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Caplan, R. M.; Linker, J. A.; Mikić, Z.; Downs, C.; Török, T.; Titov, V. S.
• Is Part Of: Journal of physics. Volume 1225(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-05
• Subjects: Physics -- Congresses; 530.5
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/1225/1/012012
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1742-6588

Abstract

Abstract: GPU accelerators have had a notable impact on high-performance computing across many disciplines. They provide high performance with low cost/power, and therefore have become a primary compute resource on many of the largest supercomputers. Here, we implement multi-GPU acceleration into our Solar MHD code (MAS) using OpenACC in a fully portable, single-source manner. Our preliminary implementation is focused on MAS running in a reduced physics "zero-beta" mode. While valuable on its own, our main goal is to pave the way for a full physics, thermodynamic MHD implementation. We describe the OpenACC implementation methodology and challenges. "Time-to-solution" performance results of a production-level flux rope eruption simulation on multi-CPU and multi-GPU systems are shown. We find that the GPU-accelerated MAS code has the ability to run "zero-beta" simulations on a single multi-GPU server at speeds previously requiring multiple CPU server-nodes of a supercomputer.