Re: st: RE: Will Stata/MP speed up running multiple dofiles inbatch mode?

[Alex Eapen <alex.eapen@sydney.edu.au>]

Thanks Neil. That clarifies it for me. The commands I intend to run in each dofile are -summ- and  -regress-. So by your reasoning  I will see improvements when I upgrade to Stata/MP.
Alex
  
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-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Shephard <nshephard@gmail.com>
Sender: "owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu"
	<owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:41:29 
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu<statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: "statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu" <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: st: RE: Will Stata/MP speed up running multiple dofiles in
 batch mode?

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 12:32 AM, Alex Eapen <alex.eapen@sydney.edu.au> wrote:
> I would appreciate some advice on whether Stata/MP will be helpful in the following situation:
>
> I currently have Stata/SE 10.1 for Mac. I would like to run several do-files at once (rather than sequentially). I see that this can be done by running Stata in batch mode from, say, the Terminal application in Mac OS (see http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/unix/batch.html). That is, at the prompt in the Terminal application in a Mac OS, I type:
>
> statase -b do bigjob1.do &
>
> followed by....
> statase -b do bigjob2.do &
>
> and then...
> statase -b do bigjob3.do &
>
> And all three dofiles run simultaneously.

> 1. My first question is whether there is a limit on how many do files can be run simultaneously in this manner?

They run simultaneously, but they are actually separate processes.
Unless there is a licensing issue with regards to how many instances
of Stata you can have running simultaneously on one computer you can
start as many batch jobs as you want.

> 2. I compared the time it takes to execute a single dofile alone to when it is run simultaneously with the other two. (I ensured all three dofiles contain exactly the same code, so any difference in time-to-run is not because of different commands in them). When the three dofiles are running simultaneously, possibly because stata resources on my computer are being stretched across three dofiles, each one takes longer to complete. Will Stata/MP help in this situation? Will Stata/MP distribute the execution of dofiles (or parts of them) across multiple cores and thus reduce the time it takes for each to complete?

Thats because you have three processes vying for your computers RAM
and CPU resources.  If you have Stata/MP then_one_ instance of Stata
will be able to use multiple cores in your computer.  If you used
Stata/MP and did exactly what you have above, you would stil have
three separate processes vying for the RAM and CPU resources, so
unless each do-file will run faster under Stata/MP you won't see any
improvement.

An overview of Stata/MP performance improvements can be found at
http://www.stata.com/statamp/report.pdf

You will also need to ensure that you have a 64-bit Intel Mac (see
http://www.stata.com/products/whichstata.html).

Neil


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