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Deep Learning Training in Facebook Data Centers: Scale Up and Out Systems Design (arxiv.org)
2 points by blopeur on May 13, 2020 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: Zion pairs CPUs and accelerators with lots of memory to train recommendation models, which need memory and bandwidth as much as raw computing power. These models already take over half of Facebook's training demand, and Zion is built to scale them as they grow.

Abstract · Deep Learning Training in Facebook Data Centers: Design of Scale-up and Scale-out Systems

Large-scale training is important to ensure high performance and accuracy of machine-learning models. At Facebook we use many different models, including computer vision, video and language models. However, in this paper we focus on the deep learning recommendation models (DLRMs), which are responsible for more than 50% of the training demand in our data centers. Recommendation models present unique challenges in training because they exercise not only compute but also memory capacity as well as memory and network bandwidth. As model size and complexity increase, efficiently scaling training becomes a challenge. To address it we design Zion - Facebook's next-generation large-memory training platform that consists of both CPUs and accelerators. Also, we discuss the design requirements of future scale-out training systems.

Maxim Naumov, John Kim, Dheevatsa Mudigere, Srinivas Sridharan, Xiaodong Wang, Whitney Zhao, Serhat Yilmaz, Changkyu Kim, Hector Yuen, Mustafa Ozdal, Krishnakumar Nair, Isabel Gao, et al.
arXiv:2003.09518 · cs.DC · submitted Mar 20, 2020 · updated Aug 18, 2020
abstract · pdf · html · 10 pages, 14 figures; adjusted Fig. 10, added reference; fixed typos

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