Performance Prediction and Ranking of Supercomputers

Performance prediction indicates the time required for execution of an application on a particular machine. Machine ranking indicates the set of machines that is likely to execute an application most quickly. These two questions are discussed within the context of large parallel applications run on on supercomputers. Different techniques are surveyed, including a framework for a general approach that weighs the results of machine benchmarks run on all systems of interest. Variations within the framework are described and tested on data from large-scale applications run on modern supercomputers, helping to illustrate the trade-offs in accuracy and effort that are inherent in any method for answering these two questions.