5. Executing graphs

The Session class (Section 3, Importing graphs) is used to run graphs on an IPU. Before the graph can be run, the way in which data will be transferred to and from the IPU must be specified. Then, an IPU can be selected to execute the graph.

5.1. Setting input and output data buffers for an execution

This section describes how to set input and output data buffers for both C++ and Python.

When using Python, the PyStepIO class is a convenient way of providing a session with input and output buffers. For both input and output, this class takes a dictionary with tensor names as keys and Python (or Numpy) arrays as values. PopART splits up these arrays internally to provide the Session object with the buffers that it needs.

Note that the Session class has a convenience method, initAnchorArrays(), that can create the output dictionary that PyStepIO needs automatically.

An alternative to PyStepIO is the PyStepIOCallback class, which you can use to implement PyStepIO by means of a callback mechanism.

The C++ equivalents of PyStepIO and PyStepIOCallback are StepIO and StepIOCallback, respectively.

Below is an example of how to use PyStepIO:

# Create buffers to receive results from the execution
anchors = session.initAnchorArrays()

# Generate some random input data
data_a = np.random.rand(1).astype(np.float32)
data_b = np.random.rand(1).astype(np.float32)

stepio = popart.PyStepIO({'a': data_a, 'b': data_b}, anchors)

session.run(stepio)

If there are any pre-defined inputs (such as weights or biases) in the graph then they will not be specified in the IStepIO object. However, before executing the graph, they will need to the copied to the device. If there are any optimiser-specific parameters which can be modified, then these must be written to the device. For example:

session.weightsFromHost()

These can also be updated between executions.

# Update learning rate parameter between training steps
stepLr = learningRate[step]
session.updateOptimizerFromHost(popart.SGD(stepLr))

Input and output data is passed to and from a Session object via IStepIO objects. Each call to Session.run() takes such an IStepIO object. For every input tensor, the IStepIO object contains a number of buffers that the session can read input data from, and for every anchor tensor, it contains a number of buffers to write output data to. Anchor tensors are described in detail in Section 5.1.1, Retrieving results.

The number and shape of these input and output buffers depend on a variety of factors including:

The shape of the associated input and output tensor in the ONNX model.

The DataFlow configuration (Section 5.1.1, Retrieving results) as passed to the constructor of the Session object.

The number of local replicas.

The gradient accumulation factor.

Section 14, PopART C++ API contains more information about inputs (IStepIO class) and outputs (DataFlow class).

5.1.1. Retrieving results

The DataFlow class (Python, C++) describes how to execute the graph. When you construct a DataFlow object, it expects two parameters, an integer (batchesPerStep) and a Python dictionary mapping tensor names to anchors:

df = popart.DataFlow(int, dict)

For example:

df = popart.DataFlow(1, {o: popart.AnchorReturnType("ALL")})

batchesPerStep is the the number of batches a call to Session.run(...) executes for before returning control to the caller. The second argument, the Python dictionary, contains keys that are the names of the tensors to retrieve from the model via the IStepIO object. These tensors are the anchor tensors. The associated values in the dictionary are defined by the AnchorReturnType class (Python, C++) and are one of:

AnchorReturnTypeId.ALL: return the tensor value for each iteration through the graph.
AnchorReturnTypeId.EVERYN: return the tensor value, but only for iterations which are divisible by N which is specified.
AnchorReturnTypeId.FINAL: return the tensor value on the final iteration through the graph.
AnchorReturnTypeId.SUM: return the sum of the values of the tensor from each iteration through the graph.

The effect of this setting on the number of output buffers is explained in more detail in the C++ API documentation for the DataFlow class.

Note that the set of tensors that are anchored may differ from those tensors marked as ONNX model outputs (via Builder.addOutputTensor(...)). In other words, a model’s output tensor need not be anchored and an anchored tensor need not be a model output – any tensor can be anchored. It is the anchored tensors that are considered to be an ‘output’ in the context of a IStepIO object.

5.2. Session options

In this section we detail a number of selected session options. Refer to the C++ API reference document for information on all session options in the SessionOptions class.

5.2.1. Stochastic rounding

You can enable stochastic rounding in PopART by setting the following session option:

opts = popart.SessionOptions()
opts.enableStochasticRounding = True

Note

Enabling stochastic rounding in PopART will result in the Poplar engine option target.deterministicWorkers being set to true (otherwise it will default to false). You can override this engine option with the PopART session option SessionOptions.engineOptions (Python, C++).

5.3. Selecting a device for execution

The device manager allows the selection of an IPU configuration for executing the session. The device must be passed into the Session class constructor.

df = popart.DataFlow(1, {o: popart.AnchorReturnType("ALL")})
device = popart.DeviceManager().createCpuDevice()
s = popart.InferenceSession("onnx.pb", deviceInfo=device, dataFlow=df)

The DeviceManager class (Python, C++) can enumerate the available devices with the enumerateDevices method (Python, C++). The acquireAvailableDevice method (Python, C++) will acquire the next available device. The parameter specifies how many IPUs to acquire.

# Acquire a two-IPU pair
dev = popart.DeviceManager().acquireAvailableDevice(2)

Using acquireDeviceById (Python, C++) will select a device from the list of IPU configurations based on its Id as returned by enumerateDevices, or by the gc-info command-line tool. This may be a single IPU or a group of IPUs.

# Acquire IPU configuration 5
dev = popart.DeviceManager().acquireDeviceById(5)

The method createIpuModelDevice (Python, C++) is used to create a Poplar software emulation of an IPU. Similarly, the method createCpuDevice (Python, C++) creates a simple Poplar CPU backend.

By default the methods acquireAvailableDevice and acquireDeviceById will attach the device immediately to the running process. You can pass the DeviceConnectionType.OnDemand option (Python, C++) to the DeviceManager object to defer the device attachment until it is required by PopART.

# Acquire four IPUs on demand
connectionType=popart.DeviceConnectionType.OnDemand
dev = popart.DeviceManager().acquireAvailableDevice(4, connectionType=connectionType)

5.4. Executing a session

Once the device has been selected, the graph can be compiled for it, and loaded into the device. The prepareDevice method (Python, C++) in the Session class is used for this:

session.prepareDevice()

To execute the session you need to call the Session object’s run method.

session.run(stepio)

If the session is created for inference, the user is responsible for ensuring that the forward graph finishes with the appropriate operation for an inference. If losses are provided to the inference session, the forward pass and the losses will be executed, and the final loss value will be returned.

If the session was created for training, any pre-initialised parameters will be updated to reflect the changes made to them by the optimiser.

5.5. Saving and loading a model

The Session class method modelToHost (Python, C++) writes a model with updated weights to the specified file.

session.modelToHost("trained_model.onnx")

Note that if you plan to run your program in multiple processes simultaneously, you should avoid possible race conditions by writing to different files, for example by using temporary files.

A file of saved parameters, for example from an earlier execution session, can be loaded into the current session.

session.resetHostWeights("test.onnx")
session.weightsFromHost()

5.6. Retrieving profiling reports

Poplar can provide profiling information on the compilation and execution of the graph. Profiling is not enabled by default.

To get profiling reports in PopART, you will need to enable profiling in the Poplar engine. For example:

opts = popart.SessionOptions()
opts.engineOptions = {"autoReport.all": "true"}

You can also control what information is included in the profiling report:

opts.reportOptions = {"showExecutionSteps": "true"}

There Session class contains two methods to access the profiling information:

getSummaryReport (Python, C++) retrieves a text summary of the compilation and execution of the graph.
getReport (Python, C++) returns a libpva Report object containing details of the compilation and execution of the graph.

If profiling is not enabled, then the summary report will say ‘Execution profiling not enabled’ and the report will contain no information on the execution.

For more information on the libpva Report class, see the user guide and API document:

For more information on profiling control and the information returned by these methods, see the Profiling chapter of the Poplar and PopLibs User Guide.

5.7. Turning on execution tracing

PopART contains an internal logging system that can show the progress of graph compilation and execution.

Logging information is generated from the following modules:

popart	Generic PopART module, if no module specified
session	The ONNX session (the PopART API)
ir	The intermediate representation
devicex	The Poplar backend
transform	The transform module
pattern	The pattern module
builder	The builder module
op	The op module
opx	The opx module
ces	The constant expression module
python	The Python module
none	An unidentified module

The logging levels, in decreasing verbosity, are shown below.

TRACE	The highest level, shows the order of method calls
DEBUG
INFO
WARN	Warnings
ERR	Errors
CRITICAL	Only critical errors
OFF	No logging

The default is OFF. You can change this, and where the logging information is written to, by setting environment variables as described in Section 10, Environment variables.

5.7.1. Programming interface

You can also control the logging level for each module in your program.

Examples are shown for Python and C++.

# Set all modules to DEBUG level
popart.getLogger().setLevel("DEBUG")
# Turn off logging for the session module
popart.getLogger("session").setLevel("OFF")

// Set all modules to DEBUG level
popart::logger::setLevel("popart", "DEBUG")
// Turn off logging for the session module
popart::logger::setLevel("session", "OFF")

5.7.2. Output format

The log information is output in the following format:

<timestamp> <namespace> <process_id>.<subprocess_id> <log_level_initial>: <log_message>

where <log_level_initial> has the following values:

Value	Description
T	Trace message
D	Debug message
I	Info message
W	Warn message
E	Error message
C	Critical messsage

An example of log information is:

2022-05-18T12:39:14.459868Z popart:devicex 90915.91186 D: [StepIOSplitter] [Gradient___input@out:0/1 - 0/1:1,0,0,0] Not yet able to call 'outComplete' on IStepIO
2022-05-18T12:39:14.459971Z popart:session 90915.90915 T: Session::weightsToHost
2022-05-18T12:39:14.459981Z popart:devicex 90915.90915 D: Writing weights to host

5.8. Errors

The full hierarchy of errors that can be thrown from a PopART Python program is:

popart_exception
  popart_internal_exception
  popart_runtime_error
poplibs_exception
poplar_exception
  poplar_runtime_error
    poplar_application_runtime_error
    poplar_system_runtime_error
      poplar_recoverable_runtime_error
      poplar_unrecoverable_runtime_error
      poplar_unknown_runtime_error

5.8.1. Application errors

Application errors are thrown for a bug in either the user code or in the framework.

popart.popart_exception
popart.popart_internal_exception
popart.popart_runtime_error
popart.poplibs_exception
popart.poplar_application_runtime_error

5.8.2. System errors

System errors are thrown by Poplar on IPU-Machines and Pod systems.

popart.poplar_recoverable_runtime_error
popart.poplar_unrecoverable_runtime_error
popart.poplar_unknown_runtime_error

A popart.poplar_recoverable_runtime_error system error has an attribute popart.poplar_recoverable_runtime_error.recoveryAction which contains the action required to recover from this error. This will be one of:

popart.RecoveryAction.IPU_RESET
popart.RecoveryAction.LINK_RESET
popart.RecoveryAction.PARTITION_RESET
popart.RecoveryAction.POWER_CYCLE

If a popart.poplar_unrecoverable_runtime_error system error is thrown, you need to contact Graphcore Support because this issue could either be an SDK bug or an issue with the hardware.

An popart.poplar_unknown_runtime_error system error could be either recoverable or unrecoverable. In this instance, try the four recovery options (IPU_RESET, LINK_RESET, PARTITION_RESET, POWER_CYCLE). If none of the recovery options resolve the issue, then contact Graphcore Support.