Stress & Load Testing
Pushing the Limits: Ensuring Resilience Under Extreme Computational Load.
Architectural Resilience Verification
To evaluate HPC system limits and ensure long-term stability, stress testing must focus on pushing the three primary pillars of the architecture: Compute, Memory, and Interconnect. We identify hidden weaknesses—from thermal throttling to silent data corruption—before they disrupt mission-critical research.
1. Compute & Thermal Stress (HPL)
The High-Performance Linpack (HPL) is our primary tool for sustained compute stress. It maximizes CPU/GPU utilization and power draw through heavy matrix multiplication.
Limit Identification:
System failures during long HPL runs typically point to thermal throttling, insufficient power delivery (PDU spikes), or cooling inefficiencies under sustained 100% load.
2. Memory & Interconnect Resilience (HPCG)
Real-World Pattern Simulation
While HPL stresses raw power, HPCG is designed to stress the memory subsystem and internal communications with irregular access patterns.
- Data-Driven Stress: Mimics modern memory-bound scientific applications.
- Fabric Pressure: Forces heavy collective communication across the interconnect.
- Failure Detection: Identifying ECC memory errors or network congestion bottlenecks that remain invisible during idle states.
3. Component-Specific Stress Checklist
| Component | Benchmark Tool | Critical Failure Indicator |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | HPL / DGEMM | Node crashes due to overheating or power spikes. |
| Memory | STREAM / HPCG | Silent Data Corruption (SDC) or uncorrectable ECC errors. |
| Fabric | OSU Micro-benchmarks | Packet loss or latency jitter under heavy collective load. |
| Storage I/O | IOR / MDTest | Filesystem lockups or Metadata Storms during checkpoints. |
4. Scaling to the Edge
Strong Scaling Test
Identifying the point where communication overhead exceeds computation gains. This marks the physical limit of your network fabric.
Weak Scaling Test
Testing the memory capacity and sustained stability of the entire cluster as a single, unified scientific resource.
Is Your System Truly Resilient?
Download our "HPC Burn-in & Stress Test Protocol" to standardize your hardware acceptance procedures.
Download Stress Test Guide (.pdf)