SERVIZ: A Shared In Situ Visualization Service

Inline and in transit visualization are popular in situ visualization models for high performance computing (HPC) applications. Inline visualization is invoked through a library call on the HPC application (simulation), while in transit methods invoke a visualization module running on in transit resources. In transit methods can offer better efficiency than inline by running the visualization at a lower concurrency level than the simulation. State-of-the-art in transit schemes are limited to employing a dedicated in transit resource for every simulation. The resulting idle time on the in transit resource can severely limit the cost savings over inline methods. This research proposes SERVIZ, an in transit visualization service that can be shared amongst multiple simulations to reduce idle time, thereby efficiently using in transit resources. SERVIZ achieves cost savings of up to 26% over inline and up to $4\mathbf{x}$ reduction in idle time compared to a dedicated in transit implementation.