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Meltdown and Spectre bugs: Difference between revisions
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Meltdown and Spectre are bugs related to speculative execution in a variety of CPU architectures developed during the past ten to fifteen years and which affect in particular processors from Intel and AMD, including those in use on Compute Canada clusters. A detailed discussion of the two bugs can be found on [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/meltdown-and-spectre-every-modern-processor-has-unfixable-security-flaws/ this page] | Meltdown and Spectre are bugs related to speculative execution in a variety of CPU architectures developed during the past ten to fifteen years and which affect in particular processors from Intel and AMD, including those in use on Compute Canada clusters. A detailed discussion of the two bugs can be found on [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/meltdown-and-spectre-every-modern-processor-has-unfixable-security-flaws/ this page]. Compute Canada personnel are currently patching systems deemed sensitive to this vulnerability. | ||
== What are the impacts ? == | == What are the impacts ? == | ||
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=== Performance impacts === | === Performance impacts === | ||
Many groups around the world, including within Compute Canada, are running | Many groups around the world, including within Compute Canada, are running benchmarks to evaluate the effects of the operating system patches on performance. Certain figures that have been cited are alarming (up to a 30% or even 50% performance hit), while others are very minimal. | ||
Below, you will find various links pointing to performance benchmarks. Keep in mind that those were not necessarily run on hardware and operating | Tasks which involve a lot of input/output (reading and writing files) seem to be most heavily affected. Examples include databases, or file transfers (e.g. rsync). Most high performance computing jobs should be minimally affected since the vast majority of the run time is spent computing rather than doing input and output. Different processor generations are also affected to different degrees, with the most notable performance degradation reported for older processors. If you suspect your jobs may incur a large performance penalty, we recommend that you compare its performance before and after. (Naturally, this will only be useful if you have performance measurements which were taken before the patches were applied.) You can also contact our [[Technical support]] to get help, but keep in mind that code modification may be required to lessen the performance impact on any given code. | ||
Below, you will find various links pointing to performance benchmarks. Keep in mind that those were not necessarily run on hardware and operating systems similar to what Compute Canada clusters are running. | |||
== What is Compute Canada doing about it ? == | == What is Compute Canada doing about it ? == | ||