Load Balancing

The process of load balancing is typically independent of the process of grid creation; the inputs to load balancing are a given set of grids with a set of weights assigned to each grid.

Single-level load balancing algorithms are sequentially applied to each AMR level independently, and the resulting distributions are mapped onto the ranks taking into account the weights already assigned to them (assign heaviest set of grids to the least loaded rank)

Options supported by AMReX include:

• KnapSack: the default weight of a grid in the knapsack algorithm is the number of grid cells, but AMReX supports the option to pass an array of weights – one per grid – or alternatively to pass in a MultiFab of weights per cell which is used to compute the weight per grid

• SFC: enumerate grids with a space-filling Z-morton curve, then partition the resulting ordering across ranks in a way that balances the load

• Round-robin: sort grids and assign them to ranks in round-robin fashion – specifically FAB i is owned by CPU i % N where N is the total number of MPI ranks.

These methods work for both fluid and particle grids if dual-grid is enabled. MFIX-Exa also supports a Greedy load balancing algorithm for particle grids. It balances the particle counts per rank and aligns particle grids with fluid grids to minimize the data-transfer between two grids.