Real-Time In-Memory Checkpointing for Future Hybrid Memory Systems

Abstract

In this paper, we study real-time in-memory checkpointing as an effective means to improve the reliability of future large-scale parallel processing systems. Under this context, the checkpoint overhead can become a significant performance bottleneck. Novel memory system designs with upcoming non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) technologies are emerging to address this performance issue. However, we find that those designs can still have prohibitively high checkpoint overhead and system downtime, especially when checkpoints are taken frequently to implement a reliable system. In this paper, we propose a novel in-memory checkpointing system, named Mona, for reducing the checkpoint overhead of hybrid memory systems with NVRAM and DRAM. To minimize the in-memory checkpoint overhead, Mona dynamically writes partial checkpoints from DRAM to NVRAM during application execution. To reduce the interference of partial checkpointing, Mona utilizes runtime idle periods and leverages a cost model to guide partial checkpointing decisions for individual DRAM ranks. We further develop load-balancing mechanisms to balance checkpoint overheads across different DRAM ranks. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of Mona in reducing the checkpoint overhead, downtime and restarting time.