Configuration Guidance Framework for Molecular Dynamics Simulations in Virtualized Clusters

With the advancement of cloud computing, there has been a growing interest in exploiting demand-based cloud resources for parallel scientific applications. To satisfy different needs for computing resources, cloud providers provide many different types of virtual machines (VMs) with various numbers of computing cores and amounts of memory. The cost and execution time of a scientific application vary depending on the types of VMs, number of VMs, and current status of the cloud due to interference among VMs. However, currently, cloud users are solely responsible for selecting the most effective VM configuration for their needs, but often end up with sub-optimal selections. In this paper, using molecular dynamics simulations as a case study, we propose a framework to guide users to select the optimal VM configurations that satisfy their requirements for scientific parallel computing in virtualized clusters. For molecular dynamics computation on a cluster of VMs, the guidance framework uses artificial neural networks which are trained to predict its execution times for various inputs, VM configurations, and status of interference among VMs. Using our performance prediction mechanisms, the guidance framework helps users choose an optimal or near-optimal VM cluster configuration under cost and runtime constraints.