Credits for SPEC OMP2012

Last updated: $Date: 2012-11-15 10:35:51 -0500 (Thu, 15 Nov 2012) $ by $Author: BrianWhitney $
(To check for possible updates to this document, please see http://www.spec.org/omp2012/Docs/ )

Creating a suite of source code benchmarks to provide a consistent, comparative measure of OpenMP and CPU-intensive performance is not simple. The challenges are numerous, for example:

locating meaningful programs;
ensuring that they port to numerous environments;
defining rules to govern how the programs are compiled, run and reported;
developing a toolset to help enforce these rules while still making things easy to use; and
defining a process by which decisions can be made amongst the group working on the project.

And in the end, you hope you have something that is fair, relevant, and understandable, that will address technology for a period of years.

Such is the case with SPEC OMP2012, which is an update and replacement for OMP2001. The new benchmark suite:

Provides a variety of applications and application areas included in the suite.
Uses application source code that is significantly complex.
Tests more features of OpenMP.
Provides for the optional collection of power data while running the benchmark.
Improves the tools for running and using the suite.
Clarifies and updates the run rules.
Improves documentation.

All of this is due to the efforts of a large team of people from around the world, that SPEC would like to thank (with apologies and thanks to those who may not be listed).

Program Authors and Contributors

SPEC OMP benchmarks are based on real-world applications and feature tests. We therefore thank the authors of those codes.

Thank you to the many participants of the "SPEC OMP Benchmark Search Program" and, in particular, the authors that contributed programs that were made part of the suite:

OMP2012 programs
`350.md`	Don Berry
`351.bwaves`	Mark Kremenetsky
`352.nab`	Russ Brown, et al
`357.bt331`	R. Van der Wijngaart, T. Harris, M. Yarrow, H. Jin
`358.botsalgn`	Nanos Group, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (Alex Duran)
`359.botsspar`	Nanos Group, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (Alex Duran)
`360.ilbdc`	Thomas Zeiser
`362.fma3d`	Sam Key
`363.swim`	Paul N. Swarztrauber
`367.imagick`	ImageMagick Studio LLC
`370.mgrid331`	Eric Barszca, Paul O Frederickson, A. Woo, M. Yarrow, H. Jin
`371.applu331`	S. Weeratunga, V. Venkatakrishnan, E. Barszcz, M. Yarrow, H. Jin
`372.smithwa`	R. Brown
`376.kdtree`	R. Brown

For more information regarding the SPEC benchmarks, including information about other contributors, see the documentation in the individual benchmarks directories.

SPEC

We would also like to thank:

SPEC management, who provided us with resources, and kept the SPEC HPG Subcommittee on their toes:
- Walter Bays - President, SPEC
- Kaivalya Dixit - Long-time President, and Guiding Light of SPEC
- Larry Gray - Long-time Treasurer, SPEC
The SPEC office, who were the ones who really provided us with the resources:
- Dianne Rice - Administration
- Cathy Sandifer, Jason Glick - Webmasters
- Charles McKay - Office
- Bob Cramblitt - Press Relations

Benchmark Project Leaders, Analysis, Tools, Testing, and Documentation

Most importantly, thank you to the people who sweated through technical details and porting issues, debated their view points vigorously, and were willing to drive issues to conclusion. Without these people this benchmark suite would truly not exist.

Huiyu Feng, Robert Henschel, Huian Li, Matthias Mueller, Chris Parrott, Brian Whitney, for being project leads of one or more benchmarks and sheperding them into the final suite.

Huiyu Feng, Daniel Hackenberg, Gabriele Jost, Huian Li, Daniel Molka, Chris Parrott, Joe Robichaux, Pavel Shelepugin, Brian Whitney for regularly testing out the kits and providing status reports.

Huiyu Feng, Daniel Molka, Chris Parrott, Joe Robichaux, Brian Whitney for help in discovering and fixing key portability issues within indvidiual benchmarks.

John Baron, Huiyu Feng, Brian Whitney, Daniel Hackenberg, Daniel Molka, for providing performance data and analysis of the individual benchmarks.

Daniel Hackenberg and Daniel Molka for taking the lead on power metrics. And Gabriele Jost and Brian Whitney for help with the testing.

Matthijs van Waveren for taking the lead on the run & reporting rules.

Cloyce Spradling is the primary author of the SPEC OMP2012 toolset and Brian Whitney for his translation of SPEC HPG requirements so Cloyce could implement them.

The SPECpower Committee for all their work on power measurements which is being made use of in this benchmark suite.

Behind the scenes

Finally, we thank all of the people behind the scenes in the compiler groups, architecture groups and performance groups who supported their work for SPEC at their respective companies.

The Bottom Line

The SPEC OMP2001 was a popular suite that lasted more than ten years. We hope this suite will take its place and be an equally important contribution to the OpenMP community.

Thank you!