batch-shipyard/recipes/Torch-GPU

Torch-GPU

This recipe shows how to run Torch on GPUs using N-series Azure VM instances in an Azure Batch compute pool.

Configuration

Please see refer to this set of sample configuration files for this recipe.

Pool Configuration

The pool configuration should enable the following properties:

• vm_size must be a GPU enabled VM size. Because Torch is a GPU-accelerated compute application, you should choose an ND, NC or NCv2 VM instance size.
• vm_configuration is the VM configuration
  • platform_image specifies to use a platform image
    • publisher should be Canonical or OpenLogic
    • offer should be UbuntuServer for Canonical or CentOS for OpenLogic
    • sku should be 16.04-LTS for Ubuntu or 7.3 for CentOS

Global Configuration

The global configuration should set the following properties:

• docker_images array must have a reference to a valid Torch GPU-enabled Docker image. alfpark/torch:gpu can be used for this recipe.

Jobs Configuration

The jobs configuration should set the following properties within the tasks array which should have a task definition containing:

• image should be the name of the Docker image for this container invocation, e.g., alfpark/torch:gpu
• command should contain the command to pass to the Docker run invocation. For the alfpark/torch:gpu Docker image and to run the MNIST convolutional example on the GPU, the run_mnist.sh helper script is used. The command should be: "/root/torch/run_mnist.sh"
• gpu can be set to true, however, it is implicitly enabled by Batch Shipyard when executing on a GPU-enabled compute pool.

Dockerfile and supplementary files

The Dockerfile for the Docker image can be found here.

You must agree to the Torch License prior to use.