Solving system of equations in parallel - matlab

I'm trying to solve a system in parallel. I'm using the example from
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/196655-linear-least-squares-mldivide-for-large-matrices-in-parallel
and I get the error
Starting parallel pool (parpool) using the 'local' profile ... Error using parpool (line 103)
Not enough input arguments.
Any suggestions?

This is likely because your local cluster job storage got corrupted somehow. Find local_cluster_jobs folder, delete it, and restart Matlab. On Windows it is probably located at the following path (could slightly differ depending on your Matlab version, though):
%AppData%\MathWorks\MATLAB\local_cluster_jobs

Related

Matlab/Simulink: run batch of simulations in parallel?

I have to run a series of simulations and save the results. Since by default Matlab only uses one core, I wonder if it is possible to open multiple worker tasks and assign different simulation runs to them?
You could run each simulation in a separate MATLAB instance and let the OS handle the process to core assignment.
One master MATLAB could synchronize each child instances checking for example if simulation results file are existing.
I aso have the same problem but I did not manage to really understand how to make it in MatLab. The documentation in matlab is too advanced to get to know how to make it.
Since I am working with Ubuntu I find a way to do the work calling the unix command from MatLab and using the parallel GNU command
So I mange to run my simulation in parallel with 4 cores.
unix('parallel --progress -j4 flow > /dev/null :::: Pool.txt','-echo')
you can find more info in the link
Shell, run four processes parallel
Details of the syntaxis can be found at https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/
but breifly I can tell you
--progress shows a status of the progress
-j4 tells the amount or jobs in parallel you want to have
flow is the name of my simulator
/dev/null was just to avoid the screen run output of the simulator to show up
Pool.txt is a file I made with the required simulator input that is basically the path and the main simulator file.
echo I do not remember now what was it for :D

Running multiple parpool jobs on a cluster

I am trying to run a number of MATLAB jobs on a cluster.
Since MATLAB saves states and diaries of each parpool job in ~/.matlab/... , when I run multiple jobs on a cluster, (each job using its own parpool), then MATLAB despite the fact that I close every open parpool every time I use one, it gives me errors related to "found 5 pre-existing parallel jobs..."
Is there a way to change the preferences folder of MATLAB for each instance of MATLAB so that this conflict does not arise ?
You need to overwrite JobStorageLocation property with a unique path for each job before starting parallel pool, e.g.
pc = parcluster('local'); % or whatever cluster you're running your jobs on
pc.JobStorageLocation = 'C:\my\unique\job\storage\location';
parpool(pc);

The client lost connection to lab X Matlab

I need help on how to tackle the Matlab error below. After a couple of successful runs I got the error message below in Matlab using parfor.
Opened 2 pools. Send function1 to worker1 and send function2 to worker2. Both functions does some sort of calcs on matrices and generate CSV at the end. It was fine until after a few runs.
The session that parfor is using has shut down
The client lost connection to lab 2. This might be due to network
problems, or the interactive matlabpool job might have errored.
We're using VM machine with a processor Intel Xeon X7560 #2.27GHz (4 processors). The RAM is 16GB. 64-bit OS.
This is part of a batch run. To resolve the issue instead of re-using the pools for every batch iteration. Make sure to "close" it. Then open fresh Matlab pools for every iteration. Seems to be more stable now, although a lot slower than the previous implementation.

Matlab process termination in slurm

I have two questions that to me seem related:
First, is it necessary to explicitly terminate Matlab in my sbatch command? I have looked through several online slurm tutorials, and in some cases the authors include an exit command:
http://www.umbc.edu/hpcf/resources-tara-2013/how-to-run-matlab.html
And in some they don't:
http://www.buffalo.edu/ccr/support/software-resources/compilers-programming-languages/matlab/PCT.html
Second, when creating a parallel pool in a job, I almost always get the following warning:
Warning: Found 4 pre-existing communicating job(s) created by pool that are
running, and 2 communicating job(s) that are pending or queued. You can use
'delete(myCluster.Jobs)' to remove all jobs created with profile local. To
create 'myCluster' use 'myCluster = parcluster('local')'
Why is this happening, and is there any way to avoid it happening to myself and to others because of me?
It depends on how you launch Matlab. Note that your two examples use distinct methods for running a matlab script; the first one uses the -r option
matlab -nodisplay -r "matrixmultiply, exit"
while the second one uses stdin redirection from a file
matlab < runjob.m
In the first solution, the Matlab process will be left running after the script is finished, that is why the exit command is needed there. In the second solution, the Matlab process is terminated as stdin closes when the end of the file is reached.
If you do not end the matlab process, Slurm will kill it when the maximum allocation time is reached, as defined by the --time option in you submission script or by the default cluster (or partition) value.
To avoid the warning you mention, make sure to systematically use matlabpool close at the end of your job. If you have several instances of Matlab running on the same node, and you have a shared home directory, you will probably get the warning anyhow, as I believe the information about open matlab pools is stored in a hidden folder in your home. Rebooting will probably not help, but finding those files and removing them will (be careful though and ask the system administrator).
to avoid your warning, you have to delete
.matlab/local_cluster_jobs/
directory

matlab parallel processing on several nodes

I have studied pages and discussion on matlab processing, but I still don't know how to distribute my program over several nodes(not cores). In the cluster which I am using, there are 10 nodes available, and inside each node there are 8 cores available. When Using "parfor" inside each node (locally between 8 cores), the parallel-ization works fine. But when using several nodes, I think that (not sure how to verify this) it doesn't work well. Here is a piece of program which I run on the cluster:
function testPool2()
disp('This is a comment')
disp(['matlab number of cores : ' num2str(feature('numCores'))])
matlabpool('open',5);
disp('This is another comment!!')
tic;
for i=1:10000
b = rand(1,1000);
end;
toc
tic;
parfor i=1:10000
b = rand(1,1000);
end;
toc
end
And the outputs is :
This is a comment
matlab number of cores : 8
Starting matlabpool using the 'local' profile ... connected to 5 labs.
This is another comment!!
Elapsed time is 0.165569 seconds.
Elapsed time is 0.649951 seconds.
{Warning: Objects of distcomp.abstractstorage class exist - not clearing this
class
or any of its super-classes}
{Warning: Objects of distcomp.filestorage class exist - not clearing this class
or any of its super-classes}
{Warning: Objects of distcomp.serializer class exist - not clearing this class
or any of its super-classes}
{Warning: Objects of distcomp.fileserializer class exist - not clearing this
class
or any of its
super-classes}
The program is first compiled using "mcc -o out testPool2.m" and then transferred to an scratch drive of a server. Then I submit the job using Microsoft HPC pack 2008 R2. Also note that I don't have access to the graphical interface of the MATLAB installed on each of the nodes. I can only submit jobs using MSR HPC Job Manager (see this: http://blogs.technet.com/b/hpc_and_azure_observations_and_hints/archive/2011/12/12/running-matlab-in-parallel-on-a-windows-cluster-using-compiled-matlab-code-and-the-matlab-compiler-runtime-mcr.aspx )
Based on the above output we can see that, the number of the available cores is 8; so I infer that the "matlabpool" only works for local cores in a machine; not between nodes (separate computers connected to each other)
So, any ideas how I can generalize my for loop ("parfor") to nodes ?
PS. I have no idea what are the warnings at the end of the output !
In order to run MATLAB on multiple nodes, the distributed computing server is needed in addition to the parallel computing toolbox. The distributing computing server must be installed and correctly configured on all of the nodes in the cluster. Normally MATLAB distributed server comes with shell scripts for launching parallel MATLAB jobs on, multiple nodes based on scheduler and cluster setup.
Without access to the distributed computing server, MATLAB can only be run on a single node. It would be valuable to verify with the cluster administrator that the distributed computing server is setup and running correctly; in some cases the administrators of these servers even have example scripts for launching and running jobs common to their user base, e.g. MATLAB
Here is a link to documentation on the Distributed Computing Server:
http://www.mathworks.com/help/mdce/index.html?searchHighlight=distributed%20computing%20server