A book on techniques for tuning the performance of large scientific computations has just been published by one of the present bloggers:
David H. Bailey, Robert F. Lucas and Samuel W. Williams, “Performance Tuning of Scientific Applications,” CRC Press (Taylor and Francis Group), Boca Raton, FL, 2011. Amazon.com.
Here is the press synopsis:
With contributions from some of the most notable experts in the field, Performance Tuning of Scientific Applications presents current research in performance analysis. Along with an overview of modern computer architecture, the book focuses on the following areas:
Performance monitoring: Describes the state of the art in hardware and software tools that are commonly used for monitoring and measuring performance and managing large quantities of data.
Performance analysis: Discusses approaches to computer performance benchmarking and presents results that offer valuable insight into these studies.
Automatic performance tuning: Explores ongoing research into automatic and semi-automatic techniques for optimizing computer programs to achieve superior performance on any computer platform.
Application tuning: Provides examples that show how the appropriate analysis of performance and some deft changes have resulted in extremely high performance.
Performance analysis has grown into a full-fledged, sophisticated field of empirical science. Describing useful research in modern performance science and engineering, this book helps real-world users of parallel computer systems to better understand both the performance vagaries arising in scientific applications and the practical means for improving performance.