What to Support When You're Compressing The State of Practice Gaps and Opportunities for Scientific Data Compression

  • Franck Cappello
  • , Robert Underwood
  • , Yuri Alexeev
  • , Alison Baker
  • , Ebru Bozdağ
  • , Martin Burtscher
  • , Kyle Chard
  • , Sheng Di
  • , Kyle Gerard Felker
  • , Paul Christopher O'Grady
  • , Hanqi Guo
  • , Yafan Huang
  • , Peng Jiang
  • , Sian Jin
  • , Petter Johansson
  • , Shaomeng Li
  • , Xin Liang
  • , Erik Lindahl
  • , Peter Lindstrom
  • , Zarija Lukić
  • Magnus Lundborg, Danylo Lykov, Masaru Nagaso, Kento Sato, Amarjit Singh, Seung Woo Son, Shihui Song, William Tang, Dingwen Tao, Jiannan Tian, Kazutomo Yoshii, Kai Zhao

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Over the last nearly 20 years, lossy compression has become an essential aspect of HPC applications' data pipelines, allowing them to overcome limitations in storage capacity and bandwidth and, in some cases, increase computational throughput and capacity. However, with the adoption of lossy compression comes the requirement to assess and control the impact lossy compression has on scientific outcomes. In this work, we take a major step forward in describing the state of practice and by characterizing workloads. We examine applications' needs and compressors' capabilities across 9 different supercomputing application domains. We present 24 takeaways that provide best practices for applications, operational impacts for facilities achieving compressed data, and gaps in application needs not addressed by production compressors that point towards opportunities for future compression research.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, SC 2025
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages1966-1979
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9798400714665
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 15 2025
Externally publishedYes
Event2025 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, SC 2025 - St. Louis, United States
Duration: Nov 16 2025Nov 21 2025

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, SC 2025

Conference

Conference2025 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, SC 2025
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySt. Louis
Period11/16/2511/21/25

Keywords

  • Error-Bounded Lossy Compression
  • High-Performance Computing
  • I/O Optimization
  • Requirements Analysis
  • State of Practice

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