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SynxFlow Project: A Smooth Migration From CUDA To SYCL

The SynxFlow Project

SynxFlow, an open-source GPU-based hydrodynamic flood modeling software, in CUDA, C++, and Python Data pre-processing and visualization are done in Python while simulations are executed on CUDA. SynxFlow can simulate floods quicker than real-time with hundreds of millions of computational cells and metre-level precision on many GPUs. An open-source software with a simple Python interface, it may be linked into data science workflows for disaster risk assessments. The model has been widely utilized in research and industry, such as to assist flood early warning systems and generate flood maps for (re)insurance firms.

SynxFlow can simulate flooding, landslide runout, and debris flow. Simulations are crucial to emergency service planning and management. A comprehensive prediction of natural disasters can reduce their social and economic costs. In addition to risk assessment and disaster preparedness, SynxFlow flood simulation can help with urban planning, environmental protection, climate change adaptation, insurance and financial planning, infrastructure design and engineering, public awareness, and education.

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Issue Statement

Several variables make probabilistic flood forecasting computationally difficult:

Large dataset storage, retrieval, and management

Complex real-time data processing requires high-performance computation.

Model calibration and validation needed as real-world conditions change.

Effective integration and data transfer between hydrological, hydraulic, and meteorological models, and more.

For speedier results, a flood forecasting system must process data in parallel and offload compute-intensive operations to hardware accelerators. Thus, the SynxFlow team must use larger supercomputers to increase flood simulation scale and cut simulation time. DAWN, the UK’s newest supercomputer, employs Intel GPUs, which SynxFlow didn’t support.

These issues offered researchers a new goal to make the SynxFlow model performance-portable and scalable on supercomputers with multi-vendor GPUs. They must transition SynxFlow code from CUDA to a cross-vendor programming language in weeks, not years.

Solution Powered by oneAPI

After considering several possibilities, the SynxFlow project team chose the Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit implementation of the Unified Acceleration Foundation-backed oneAPI protocol. All are built on multiarchitecture, multi-vendor SYCL framework. It supports Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD GPUs and includes the Intel DPC++ Compatibility Tool for automated CUDA-to-SYCL code translation.

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SynxFlow code migration went smoothly. This produced code that automatically translated most CUDA kernels and API calls into SYCL. After auto-translation, some mistakes were found during compilation, but the migration tool’s error-diagnostic indications and warnings made them easy to rectify. It took longer to switch from NVIDIA Collective Communications Library (NCCL)-based inter-GPU communication to GPU-direct enabled Intel MPI library calls because this could not be automated.

To summarize, there has been a promising attempt to transfer a complicated flood simulation code that was built on CUDA to SYCL, achieving both scalability and performance-portability. The conversion has been easy to handle and seamless thanks to the Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit.

Intel hosted a oneAPI Hackfest at the DiRAC HPC Research Facility

DiRAC

The High Performance Super Computer facility in the United Kingdom serving the theoretical communities of Particle Physics, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Solar System and Planetary Science, and Nuclear Physics.

DiRAC’s three HPC services Extreme Scaling, Memory-Intensive, and Data-Intensive are each designed to support the distinct kinds of computational workflows required to carry out their science program. DiRAC places a strong emphasis on innovation, and all of its services are co-designed with vendor partners, technical and software engineering teams, and research community.

Training Series on oneAPI at DiRAC Hackfest

On May 21–23, 2024, the DiRAC community hosted three half-day remote training sessions on the Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit. The training series was designed for developers and/or researchers with varying degrees of experience, ranging from novices to experts.

The cross-platform compatible SYCL programming framework served as the foundation for a variety of concepts that were taught to the attendees. The students were also introduced to a number of Base Kit component tools and libraries that facilitate SYCL. For instance, the Intel DPC++ Compatibility Tool facilitates automated code migration from CUDA to C++ with SYCL; the Intel oneAPI Math Kernel Library (oneMKL) optimizes math operations; the Intel oneAPI Deep Neural Networks (oneDNN) accelerates hackfest and the Intel oneAPI DPC++ Library (oneDPL) expedites SYCL kernels on a variety of hardware. Additionally, the training sessions covered code profiling and the use of Intel Advisor and Intel VTune Profiler, two tools included in the Base Kit for analyzing performance bottlenecks.

DiRAC Hackfest’s oneAPI Hackath on

In order to complete a range of tasks, including parallelizing Fortran code on Intel GPUs, accelerating math operations like the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) using oneMKL’s SYCL API, and resolving performance bottlenecks with the aid of Intel Advisor and Intel VTune Profiler, the participants improvised their cutting-edge projects using oneAPI tools and libraries.

The participants reported that it was easy to adjust to using oneAPI components and that the code migration process went smoothly. The teams saw a noticeable increase in workload performance with libraries like Intel MPI. Approximately 70% of the teams who took part indicated that they would be open to using oneAPI technologies to further optimize the code for their research projects. Thirty percent of the teams benchmarked their outcomes using SYCL and oneAPI, and they achieved a 100% success rate in code conversion to SYCL.

Start Programming Multiarchitecture Using SYCL and oneAPI

Investigate the SYCL framework and oneAPI toolkits now for multiarchitecture development that is accelerated! Use oneAPI to enable cross-platform parallelism in your apps and move your workloads to SYCL for high-performance heterogeneous computing.

Intel invite you to review the real-world code migration application samples found in the CUDA to SYCL catalog. Investigate the AI, HPC, and rendering solutions available in Intel’s software portfolio driven by oneAPI.

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