3D approach to the visualization of parallel applications and Grid monitoring information

Parallel computing is increasingly used to provide more performance to applications that need tremendous computational power. The main characteristics of distributed parallel machines are heterogeneity, dynamism and size. They influence directly the way the application and platform monitoring tasks are performed, especially when analyzing a large quantity of information collected in a topologically complex machine. This paper describes our efforts to provide parallel programmers and Grid users a new way to visualize monitoring data. Using graphics in three dimensions and information visualization techniques, we aim at bringing rich topological information to the rendered scene. It results in an immersible and human readable representation of complex monitoring data, suited to Grid environments. We first review known techniques in information visualization context, especially those that address the case of hierarchical information, and we discuss about their use in our context. Then, we propose a new 3D approach that combines the classical space-time visualization of application traces with the representation of the applicationpsilas communication pattern. Finally, we present experimental results obtained through the visualization of parallel applications in our prototype.