sv7: Blazing Visualization on a Commodity Cluster

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sv7 Blazing Visualization on a Commodity Cluster

• Byron Alcorn
• Senior Engineer
• Workstation Global Business Unit Personal Systems
  Group

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hp workstations competitive advantage

• systems designed and certified for
  technical/professional users
• complete portfolio of IA-32, Itanium, and PA-RISC
  based workstations
• choice of O/S including hp-ux, Linux, and Windows

• partnerships and certification with leading
  software vendors
• hp leadership graphics program
• HPs renowned stability, reliability
  manageability and global support

sv7
sv6
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Workstations Graphics Strategy
deliver leadership performance / functionality on
HP workstation platforms into the future
(Pentium/Xeon, PA-RISC, Intel Itanium
architecture)
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scalable visualization portfolio
Dataset Size, Performance, Features
All Markets
Custom / Middleware Enabled Applications
Broadest Set of Applications
Serial Apps App Transparent Display List
Limited Parallelization
Full Parallelization
Serial Apps
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities
sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities

• screen subdivided into regions

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities

• screen subdivided into regions

• each pipe renders only what is visible in its
  region of the screen

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities

• screen subdivided into regions

• each pipe renders only what is visible in its
  region of the screen

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities

• screen subdivided into regions

• each pipe renders only what is visible in its
  region of the screen

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities

• screen subdivided into regions

• each pipe renders only what is visible in its
  region of the screen

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities

• screen subdivided into regions

• each pipe renders only what is visible in its
  region of the screen

• resultant image is seamlessly recomposited

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7 Capabilities

• screen subdivided into regions

• each pipe renders only what is visible in its
  region of the screen

• resultant image is seamlessly recomposited

• scalable from 4-way to 16-way
• scalable in performance, image quality, and
  resolution

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7performance
scaling

• screen subdivided into regions

• each pipe renders only what is visible in its
  region of the screen

• resultant image is seamlessly recomposited

• scalable from 4-way to 16-way
• scalable in performance, image quality, and
  resolution

• seamless integration of 2d and 3d providing an
  environment that makes sv6 and sv7 transparent to
  the application

sv6
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7image quality
scaling
compositor blends samples to target resolution
of the display
sv7 builds on the native resolution of the
graphics card 16 samples per card x
4 or 8 wkst per channel 64 128 samples
per pixel
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hp visualization center sv6 / sv7virtually
unlimited resolution scaling

• N x M resolution scaling
• edge blended (seamless)
• edge matched
• window paned
• sv6 1 16 sv7 1 8
• render nodes per display channel
• performance scaling
• image quality scaling
• Genlock synch active or passive stereo

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sv7 solution

• Based on commodity components
• All components paced with innovation rate of the
  industry
• Upgrades easily supported
• hp-ux application master provides upgrade for sv6
  installed base
• Architecture pre-enabled for non hp-ux
  application masters (eg. Linux, Windows)

Application Master hp-ux/PA
Rendering Node Pentium/XeonLinux
Rendering Node Pentium/XeonLinux
Displays
Compositor
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sv7 hardware
Parallel DVI rendering nodes 2D
master node

• Compositor firmware supports no sync option
• Graphics cards are not synchronized
• Application frame rate is limited to the video
  rate
• Compositor can support syncd graphics cards (eg.
  HP FX-10, NVIDIA FX 3000G) and remove the
  application frame rate limitation

Digital Compositor
xw8000 render nodes NVIDIA Quadro FX 2000
J6750 appl master
1Gbit interconnect
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sv7 multi-threaded software architecturemaster
node

• libSvGL client side library replaces the
  vendors OpenGL
• setpipes GUI dynamic configuration of the
  rendering nodes
• svcd control daemon manages the other sv
  threads
• svdb database stores sv specific information,
  queried by other threads
• tpt transport reliable udp multicast for
  efficient data transfers
• svsp render node configuration control
• svsc render node control configure and manage
  render node processes eg. X
• svcc compositor control
• compositor firmware supports compositing modes

svdb
svcd
setpipes GUI
user
tpt
application
svsp
xlib
libSvGL
svsc
svcc
sv sub-system
compositor
slsdx
Xhp slave

• Xhp master master X server
• Xhp slave 2D slave X server (desktop rendered)
• slsd single logical screen distributed
  supports a distributed desktop over multiple
  workstations

windowing sub-system
Xhp master
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sv7 multi-threaded software architecturerender
node
svcd
svdb

• svdb database can store render node specific
  information locally or query the master
• tpt transport receiver for render packets
  using udp multicast, manages connections to the
  master
• ogldsv slave side rendering thread, one per 3d
  context
• slsdx single logical screen distributed
  supports the X interface required by ogldsv so
  that window creates, moves, and resizes work
  correctly
• Xfree86 is unmodified
• OEM libGL is unmodified

tpt
sv sub-system
ogldsv
svsc
oem libGL
windowing sub-system
slsdx
Xfree86
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sv7 software communication paths
Master Node
Render Node
svdb
svcd
svdb
svcd
setpipes GUI
user
tpt
tpt
application
svsp
ogldsv
xlib
libSvGL
svsc
svsc
svcc
oem libGL
compositor

• Multi-threaded solution
• Object oriented components
• Blazing performance

slsdx
slsdx
Xhp slave
Xfree86 slave
Xhp master
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sv7 performance comparison
Application 1
Application 2
sv7 numbers are for 4 render nodes per display
channel July numbers are measured October
numbers are estimates
sv6 entry
sv7 July
sv7 Oct
sv6 entry
sv7 July
sv7 Oct
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conclusion

• Using high performance commodity components as
  building blocks we have the ability to ride the
  innovation rate of the industry
• Faster time to market than a full custom solution
• Lower costs due to the volumes of the base
  platform
• sv7 allows the user to choose the axis of
  scalability
• Performance
• Image quality
• Resolution
• All applications run on the cluster transparent
  to user and the application
• Our flexible architecture both hardware and
  software will allow us to quickly adapt to the
  changing needs of our customer base

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