[Dune] Dynamic load balancing with ALUGrid

Martin Nolte nolte at mathematik.uni-freiburg.de
Fri Feb 22 09:13:25 CET 2013


Hi Bernd,

I guess you are the first to use global ids during load balancing and it seems 
you hit on a bug in ALUGrid (please file a complete bug report on this).

Actually, the solution we use is far simpler. Store your data in a std::map 
using the LocalIdSet (or use a PersistentContainer). This way, your data will 
always be accessible, even during load balancing. Then you write a data handle 
(warning: you communicate on the entire hierarchy). That's it.

Let me give a bit of explaination: Behind the scenes, ALUGrid will pack data 
for a macro element to be sent to another process. To this end, it will 
traverse the tree and pack the element information and your data (calling 
gather). When all macro elements have been packed, the data is sent to the new 
processes. Here, they are unpacked, i.e., the element is constructed and all 
scatter is called. During scatter, the ids will already be valid, so you can 
use them to access your data container (though the global id might be buggy, 
as you stated).

One final opinion: GlobalIds are an artificial DUNE construct. Implementing 
them might be quite complicated and expensive. This is the case for ALUGrid, 
where they are generated in the DUNE bindings. Hence, they have to 
communicated during load balancing (expensive). So, if you ask ALUGrid for the 
global id set once, you got to pay this price. There is no way of telling how 
long this id set is to be used (because it is returned by reference).

Best,

Martin





On 02/22/2013 07:35 AM, Bernd Flemisch wrote:
> Hi,
>
> sorry for the noise again, but I found a working solution. So if you already
> started to brood over the problem, you may relax.
>
> I assume that the Ids are still valid during gather and will become valid
> again and with the same values after load balance. I simply gather the Ids
> together with the data and scatter both of them. In a postprocess after load
> balance, I use this (now valid) information to write the values into the
> corresponding vector.
>
> This works for several grids and numbers of processes, so I hope for all of
> them. I attach the file.
>
> If you think this is important enough to become a test in dune/grid/test and
> feel responsible for evaluating and committing it, I am happy to provide a
> patch and to improve it together with you.
>
> Thanks to Andreas and Martin for the hints which helped to achieve this. Kind
> regards
> Bernd
>
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:12:44 +0100
>   Bernd Flemisch <bernd at iws.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
>> Actually, the Ids are the same again after the load balancing step is over.
>> But apparently not during scatter, where I would need it. Hmmm...
>>
>> On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:55:51 +0100
>>  Bernd Flemisch <bernd at iws.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> only a few months have passed and I found the time to look at this again. I
>>> tried to follow Andreas' suggestion and work with Ids rather than indices,
>>> since they should be persistent. I was hoping that "persistent" means that,
>>> if an element is moved from one process to another, it keeps its global Id.
>>> Looking at
>>> http://www.dune-project.org/doc/doxygen/dune-grid-html/class_dune_1_1_id_set.html#_details
>>>
>>> does not necessarily say that (I think).
>>>
>>> I set up a test for my efforts, see the attached file. The coarse grid is
>>> 5x1x1. The two left elements are interior on process 1, the three right
>>> ones interior on process 2. The two left elements get refined. After
>>> adaption, loadBalance with my DataHandle is called. The three right
>>> elements are all moved to process 1, so that after the balancing step,
>>> process 1 holds all elements, while process 0 has none.
>>>
>>> During load balance, I print the cell centers, global Ids, and
>>> gathered/scattered values on each process. This gives the following:
>>> Process 0:
>>> 0: 0.5 0.5 0.5, ([2,3,8,14],8,0): gather 0
>>> 0: 0.7 0.5 0.5, ([3,4,9,15],8,0): gather 1
>>> 0: 0.9 0.5 0.5, ([4,5,10,16],8,0): gather 2
>>> Process 1:
>>> 1: 0.5 0.5 0.5, ([2,3,8,14],71,0): scatter 0
>>> 1: 0.7 0.5 0.5, ([2,3,8,14],70,0): scatter 1
>>> 1: 0.9 0.5 0.5, ([2,3,8,14],69,0): scatter 2
>>> It seems to be correct that information from three elements is sent from
>>> process 0 and received for the corresponding elements by process 1.
>>> However, the global Ids are changed. Is this correct? Then how tf can I
>>> find out which elements correspond to each other? Or am I still doing
>>> something wrong?
>>>
>>> Thank you for having another look. Kind regards
>>> Bernd
>>>
>>> On Sat, 27 Oct 2012 07:43:48 +0000
>>>  "Dedner, Andreas" <A.S.Dedner at warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>> Is it not even so that one can not use an undexset at all? Load balancing
>>>> changes the grid so the indexsets are not valid. You need to use id
>>>> containers.
>>>> Andreas
>>>>
>>>> Martin Nolte <nolte at mathematik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:
>>>> Hi Bernd,
>>>>
>>>> I have an educated guess for you (don't blame me, if I'm wrong):
>>>>
>>>> In normal communication, you only communicate data on a certain grid view.
>>>> Hence
>>>> you can use the index set to address data stored on that grid view.
>>>>
>>>> When doing load balancing, you rather communicate data on the entire
>>>> hierarchy.
>>>> Therefore, your entity might not be contained an index set (leading to this
>>>> cryptic assertion). So, if you want to communicate data only on a certain
>>>> grid
>>>> view, you have to add a call to indexSet.contains to the gather / scatter
>>>> / size
>>>> methods. Usually, fixedSize will be false in such situations (I think ALUGrid
>>>> ignores this anyway, so it should not matter, here).
>>>>
>>>> Just a side note: In my opionion, a normal communicate method exchanging
>>>> data on
>>>> the entire hierarchy would be nice, too. But alas, this method would
>>>> naturally
>>>> be "grid().communicate( dataHandle, interface, direction )".
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>>> On 10/26/2012 01:32 PM, Bernd Flemisch wrote:
>>>>> Hey Andreas,
>>>>>
>>>>> thank you for your fast answer. This indeed solves my second issue.
>>>>> However, the
>>>>> first one remains. I attach an updated test file.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kind regards
>>>>> Bernd
>>>>>
>>>>> On 10/26/2012 01:08 PM, Dedner, Andreas wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Bernd
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You should be able to cast the derived class onto the interface class
>>>>>> and that triggers the call to the correct method.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andreas
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ________________________________________
>>>>>> From: dune-bounces+a.s.dedner=warwick.ac.uk at dune-project.org
>>>>>> [dune-bounces+a.s.dedner=warwick.ac.uk at dune-project.org] on behalf of Bernd
>>>>>> Flemisch [bernd at iws.uni-stuttgart.de]
>>>>>> Sent: 26 October 2012 11:53
>>>>>> To: Dune
>>>>>> Subject: [Dune] Dynamic load balancing with ALUGrid
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Dune,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I try to use dynamic load balancing with ALUGrid. The grid itself gets
>>>>>> balanced nicely, but I don't succeed in getting data balanced.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> From dune/grid/alugrid/3d/grid.hh lines 701ff, I guess that I can pack
>>>>>> a "usual" data handle which is used for communication into a
>>>>>> ALUGridLoadBalanceDataHandle and call loadBalance with that handle. My
>>>>>> initial attempt to do this fails with
>>>>>> test-dynamiclb:
>>>>>> ../../../dune/grid/alugrid/common/defaultindexsets.hh:218:
>>>>>> Dune::DefaultIndexSet<GridImp, IteratorImp>::IndexType
>>>>>> Dune::DefaultIndexSet<GridImp, IteratorImp>::index(const typename
>>>>>> GridImp::Codim<cd>::Entity&) const [with int cd = 0; GridImp =
>>>>>> Dune::ALU3dGrid<(Dune::ALU3dGridElementType)7u>; IteratorImp =
>>>>>> Dune::EntityIterator<0, const
>>>>>> Dune::ALU3dGrid<(Dune::ALU3dGridElementType)7u>,
>>>>>> Dune::ALU3dGridLeafIterator<0, (Dune::PartitionIteratorType)4u, const
>>>>>> Dune::ALU3dGrid<(Dune::ALU3dGridElementType)7u> > >;
>>>>>> Dune::DefaultIndexSet<GridImp, IteratorImp>::IndexType = unsigned int;
>>>>>> typename GridImp::Codim<cd>::Entity = Dune::Entity<0, 3, const
>>>>>> Dune::ALU3dGrid<(Dune::ALU3dGridElementType)7u>,
>>>>>> Dune::ALU3dGridEntity>]: Assertion `indexContainer( cd )[ en ].index()
>>>>>> >= 0' failed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I attach my effort, where I use a data handle copied from the
>>>>>> grid-howto. It would be great if you could take a look.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have a second issue: I guess that I should be able to call loadBalance
>>>>>> directly with a usual data handle, so that grid.hh lines 701ff takes
>>>>>> care of it and packs it for me into a ALUGridLoadBalanceDataHandle
>>>>>> before sending it to the real loadBalance method. However, since my data
>>>>>> handle is only inherited from CommDataHandleIF, the packing routine is
>>>>>> not triggered but the real loadBalance method is called directly leading
>>>>>> to a compilation error. How can I trigger the execution of the packing
>>>>>> routine for such a derived data handle?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you for having a look. Kind regards
>>>>>> Bernd
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> _____________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bernd Flemisch phone: +49 711 685 69162
>>>>>> IWS, Universität Stuttgart fax: +49 711 685 60430
>>>>>> Pfaffenwaldring 61 email: bernd at iws.uni-stuttgart.de
>>>>>> D-70569 Stuttgart url:
>>>>>> www.hydrosys.uni-stuttgart.de<http://www.hydrosys.uni-stuttgart.de>
>>>>>> _____________________________________________________________________
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Dune mailing list
>>>>> Dune at dune-project.org
>>>>> http://lists.dune-project.org/mailman/listinfo/dune
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Dr. Martin Nolte <nolte at mathematik.uni-freiburg.de>
>>>>
>>>> Universität Freiburg                                phone: +49-761-203-5630
>>>> Abteilung für angewandte Mathematik                 fax:   +49-761-203-5632
>>>> Hermann-Herder-Straße 10
>>>> 79104 Freiburg, Germany
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Dune mailing list
>>>> Dune at dune-project.org
>>>> http://lists.dune-project.org/mailman/listinfo/dune
>>>>
>>>
>>> ___________________________________________________________
>>>
>>> Bernd Flemisch                     phone: +49 711 685 69162
>>> IWS, Universitaet Stuttgart          fax: +49 711 685 67020
>>> Pfaffenwaldring 61        email: bernd at iws.uni-stuttgart.de
>>> D-70569 Stuttgart        url: www.hydrosys.uni-stuttgart.de
>>> ___________________________________________________________
>>
>> ___________________________________________________________
>>
>> Bernd Flemisch                     phone: +49 711 685 69162
>> IWS, Universitaet Stuttgart          fax: +49 711 685 67020
>> Pfaffenwaldring 61        email: bernd at iws.uni-stuttgart.de
>> D-70569 Stuttgart        url: www.hydrosys.uni-stuttgart.de
>> ___________________________________________________________
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dune mailing list
>> Dune at dune-project.org
>> http://lists.dune-project.org/mailman/listinfo/dune
>
> ___________________________________________________________
>
> Bernd Flemisch                     phone: +49 711 685 69162
> IWS, Universitaet Stuttgart          fax: +49 711 685 67020
> Pfaffenwaldring 61        email: bernd at iws.uni-stuttgart.de
> D-70569 Stuttgart        url: www.hydrosys.uni-stuttgart.de
> ___________________________________________________________
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dune mailing list
> Dune at dune-project.org
> http://lists.dune-project.org/mailman/listinfo/dune
>

-- 
Dr. Martin Nolte <nolte at mathematik.uni-freiburg.de>

Universität Freiburg                                   phone: +49-761-203-5630
Abteilung für angewandte Mathematik                    fax:   +49-761-203-5632
Hermann-Herder-Straße 10
79104 Freiburg, Germany




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