Case Study: HPC.NRW advances HPC debugging and training with Perforce TotalView

HPC.NRW scales debugging across 12 data centers with Perforce

The customer, HPC.NRW (the North Rhine-Westphalian Competence Network for High-Performance Computing), needed an efficient debugging tool for complex, highly-parallel MPI programs across its 12 state-wide data centers. Their previous debuggers were not easy to use, often forcing researchers to rely on basic methods like printf statements, which slowed down the implementation of new scientific code. They partnered with vendor Perforce to find a better solution, ultimately selecting Perforce's TotalView debugger.

Perforce implemented a flexible site-wide licensing model for TotalView, allowing HPC.NRW to distribute licenses across all their clusters. This solution provided balanced usage, lower costs compared to team licensing, and easy expansion. The results included faster debugging of complex programs and the integration of TotalView into HPC.NRW's training programs, which Perforce supports with dedicated training materials. This drastically improves researchers' ability to find problems in their custom, advanced codes.

Hpc.nrw