# Parallel APBS execution for large calculations¶

## Why parallel?¶

APBS finite difference multigrid calculations require approximately 200 B memory per grid point. These memory requirements can be distributed in two ways during a calculation:

• APBS calculations can be performed in parallel across multiple processors (hopefully, sharing distributed memory!). This functionality is provided by using the mg-para keyword.
• APBS calculations can be broken into a series of smaller, asynchronous runs which (individually) require less memory. This functionality is provided by using both the mg-para and async keywords.

## Synchronous parallel calculations¶

The actin dimer example provided with the APBS distribution examples/actin-dimer/ is a fairly large system that can often require too much memory for some systems. This example will use the actin dimer complex PQR file (complex.pqr) to illustrate parallel focusing.

We’re going to use an 8-processor parallel calculation to write out the electrostatic potential map for this complex. Each processor will solve a portion of the overall problem using the parallel focusing method on a 973 mesh with 20% overlap between meshes for neighboring processors. An example input file for this calculation might look like:

read
mol pqr complex.pqr
end
elec name complex
mg-para
ofrac 0.1
pdime 2 2 2
dime 97 97 97
fglen 150 115 160
cglen 156 121 162
cgcent mol 1
fgcent mol 1
mol 1
npbe
bcfl sdh
ion 1 0.150 2.0
ion -1 0.150 2.0
pdie 2.0
sdie 78.54
srfm mol
chgm spl0
swin 0.3
sdens 10.0
temp 298.15
calcenergy total
calcforce no
write pot dx pot
end
quit


where the “pdime 2 2 2” statement specifies the 8-processor array dimensions, the “ofrac 0.1” statement specifies the 20% overlap between processor calculations, and the “dime 97 97 97 statement specifies the size of each processor’s calculation. The “write pot dx potential” instructs APBS to write out OpenDX-format maps of the potential to 8 files potential-#.dx, where # is the number of the particular processor.

An MPI-compiled version of APBS can be used with this input file to run 8 parallel focusing calculations, with each calculation generating fine-scale solutions on a different region of the (fglen) problem domain. Note that 8 separate OpenDX files are written by the 8 processors used to perform the calculation. Writing separate OpenDX< files allows us to avoid communication in the parallel run and keeps individual file sizes (relatively) small. Additionally, if a user is interested in a specific portion of the problem domain, only a few files are needed to get local potential information. However, most users are interested in global potentials. APBS provides the mergedx and mergedx2 program to reassemble the separate OpenDX files into a single file. mergedx is a simple program that allows users to combine several OpenDX files from a parallel focusing calculation into a single map. This map can be down-sampled from the original resolution to provide coarser datasets for fast visualization, etc. For example, the command

\$ mergedx 65 65 65 pot0.dx pot1.dx pot2.dx pot3.dx pot4.dx pot5.dx pot6.dx pot7.dx


will generate a file gridmerged.dx` which has downsampled the much larger dataset contained in the 8 OpenDX files into a 653 file which would be suitable for rough visualization. An example of mergedx output visualization is shown in the attached figure. Note that downsampling isn’t necessary – and often isn’t desirable for high quality visualization or quantitative analysis.

## Asynchronous parallel calculations¶

The steps described in the previous section can also be performed for systems or binaries which are not equipped for parallel calculations via MPI. In particular, you can add the statement “async n” to the ELEC mg-para section of the APBS input file to make the single-processor calculation masquerade as processor n of a parallel calculation.

Scalar maps from asynchronous APBS calculations can be combined using the mergedx program as described above. Currently, energies and forces from asynchronous APBS calculations need to merged manually (e.g., summed) from the individual asynchronous calculation output. This can be accomplished by simple shell scripts.