To keep up with increasing dataset sizes and model complexity, distributed training has become a necessity for large machine learning tasks. Parameter servers ease the implementation of distributed parameter management---a key concern in distributed training---, but can induce severe communication overhead. To reduce communication overhead, distributed machine learning algorithms use techniques to increase parameter access locality (PAL), achieving up to linear speed-ups. We found that existing parameter servers provide only limited support for PAL techniques, however, and therefore prevent efficient training. In this paper, we explore whether and to what extent PAL techniques can be supported, and whether such support is beneficial. We propose to integrate dynamic parameter allocation into parameter servers, describe an efficient implementation of such a parameter server called Lapse, and experimentally compare its performance to existing parameter servers across a number of machine learning tasks. We found that Lapse provides near-linear scaling and can be orders of magnitude faster than existing parameter servers.
We study scalable algorithms for frequent sequence mining under flexible subsequence constraints. Such constraints enable applications to specify concisely which patterns are of interest and which are not. We focus on the bulk synchronous parallel model with one round of communication; this model is suitable for platforms such as MapReduce or Spark. We derive a general framework for frequent sequence mining under this model and propose the D-SEQ and D-CAND algorithms within this framework. The algorithms differ in what data are communicated and how computation is split up among workers. To the best of our knowledge, D-SEQ and D-CAND are the first scalable algorithms for frequent sequence mining with flexible constraints. We conducted an experimental study on multiple real-world datasets that suggests that our algorithms scale nearly linearly, outperform common baselines, and offer acceptable generalization overhead over existing, less general mining algorithms.
Parameter servers (PSs) ease the implementation of distributed machine learning systems, but their performance can fall behind that of single machine baselines due to communication overhead. We demonstrate Lapse, an open source PS with dynamic parameter allocation . Previous work has shown that dynamic parameter allocation can improve PS performance by up to two orders of magnitude and lead to near-linear speed-ups over single machine baselines. This demonstration illustrates how Lapse is used and why it can provide order-of-magnitude speed-ups over other PSs. To do so, this demonstration interactively analyzes and visualizes how dynamic parameter allocation looks like in action.
Parameter servers (PSs) ease the implementation of distributed training for large machine learning (ML) tasks by providing primitives for shared parameter access. Especially for ML tasks that access parameters sparsely, PSs can achieve high efficiency and scalability. To do so, they employ a number of techniques-such as replication or relocation-to reduce communication cost and/or latency of parameter accesses. A suitable choice and parameterization of these techniques is crucial to realize these gains, however. Unfortunately, such choices depend on the task, the workload, and even individual parameters, they often require expensive upfront experimentation, and they are susceptible to workload changes. In this paper, we explore whether PSs can automatically adapt to the workload without any prior tuning. Our goals are to improve usability and to maintain (or even improve) efficiency. We propose (i) a novel intent signaling mechanism that acts as an enabler for adaptivity and naturally integrates into ML tasks, and (ii) a fully adaptive, zero-tuning PS called AdaPS based on this mechanism. Our experimental evaluation suggests that automatic adaptation to the workload is indeed possible: AdaPS matched or outperformed state-of-the-art PSs out of the box.
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