Lizard Help
Applies To: Microsoft HPC Pack 2008, Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2, Microsoft HPC Pack 2012, Windows HPC Server 2008, Windows HPC Server 2008 R2
Lizard helps you to determine the computational performance and efficiency that can be achieved by your Windows HPC cluster. It calculates and reports a peak performance value for your HPC cluster in billions of floating-point operations per second (GFLOPS), and a percentage value for the efficiency that was achieved at peak performance. After running Lizard, you can review the performance and efficiency results that were obtained, and optionally save these results and the parameters that were used to achieve them to a file on your computer.
Lizard calculates the performance and efficiency of your HPC cluster by automatically running the LINPACK Benchmark several times, tuning the parameters that govern the LINPACK Benchmark solution further for each run. The LINPACK Benchmark is used for the TOP500 list (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=153393), where the fastest supercomputers in the world are ranked. After each time the LINPACK Benchmark has finished running, Lizard analyses the results that were obtained and automatically adjusts the parameters it uses to run the LINPACK Benchmark the next time. Eventually, Lizard is able to provide optimal measurements of the performance of your HPC cluster, which are available for your review at the end of the tuning process. Lizard does not tune the performance of the cluster itself.
You can run Lizard either in express tuning mode or in advanced tuning mode. In express tuning mode, Lizard starts the tuning process immediately, using default values for the parameters of the LINPACK Benchmark. In advanced tuning mode, you can provide the specific values that you want Lizard to use when the tuning process starts, and you can also configure how the tuning process is run.
Important
You must run Lizard on the head node of your HPC cluster. You must run Lizard from an elevated security context by using the Run as Administrator option. Depending on the size and other characteristics of your HPC cluster, Lizard can take several hours to complete. Also, resources on your HPC cluster will be used to their limit. Running Lizard can maximize CPU and network load, and thus greatly increase power consumption. For these reasons, we recommend that you run Lizard while your HPC cluster is not being used for other computational tasks.
Note
Lizard includes parts of the Intel Math Kernel Library for Windows; and High Performance Linpack from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Innovative Computing Laboratories.
Note
You can download Lizard as part of the HPC Pack Tool Pack. For more information, see Microsoft HPC Pack: Tools and Extensibility.