sglang-qwen36-ascend-best-practice

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name: sglang-qwen36-ascend-best-practice description: Reproduce the verified best-practice SGLang deployment of Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (MoE) on Huawei Ascend 910 NPU (8 cards × 2 die = 16 die). Hybrid topology: C1 → TP16 single engine, C4+ → TP2/DP8 sticky. BF16 + NEXTN speculative decoding. All 12 data points (3 scenarios × 4 concurrency) exceed the historical best.

Skill: SGLang + Qwen3.6-35B-A3B on Ascend NPU — Best-Practice Reproduction

Version: v1.0 Date: 2026-08-05 Status: Verified — 12/12 data points exceed historical best (xlsx SGLang Exp2) Model: Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (MoE, 256 experts, top-8, hybrid attention: 10 full-attn + 30 GDN linear-attn) Framework: SGLang v0.5.14-cann9.0.0-a3-arm64 on Ascend 910 (A3) NPU

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1. What This Skill Does

Reproduces the optimal inference deployment for Qwen3.6-35B-A3B on a 16-die Ascend NPU host. The key finding from extensive A/B testing: no single topology wins all concurrency levels. The best practice is a hybrid topology:

Concurrency	Topology	Why
C1 (single user)	TP16 single engine (1 process, 16 die)	1 request monopolizes all 16 die → fastest prefill, lowest TTFT
C4+ (multi user)	TP2/DP8 sticky (8 processes, 2 die each)	8 instances distribute load, sufficient batch per instance, NEXTN benefit fully realized

1.1 Verified Results (output tok/s per user)

Scenario	C1	C4	C8	C16
Chat (128, 256)	160.33	137.61	122.49	94.10
Coding Agent (16384, 4096)	151.55	132.90	118.90	94.22
Summarization (1024, 128)	148.46	132.39	117.45	94.54

All 12 points exceed the historical best (xlsx SGLang Exp2, TP16 single engine) by +4% to +153%.

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2. Prerequisites

2.1 Hardware

Item	Value
NPU host	8 × Ascend 910 (A3), 16 die (/dev/davinci0 – /dev/davinci15)
HBM	64 GiB per NPU, 512 GiB total
Network interface	enp23s0f3 (used for HCCL/GLOO sockets in TP16 mode)

2.2 Software (on inference host)

Item	Value
SGLang image	swr.sa-brazil-1.myhuaweicloud.com/llm-test-brazil/sglang:v0.5.14-cann9.0.0-a3-arm64
Model path (BF16)	/data/models/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (mounted from /mnt/sfs_turbo/models/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B)
Docker	with --device /dev/davinci* + --device /dev/davinci_manager + --device /dev/devmm_svm + --device /dev/hisi_hdc
Ascend driver mounts	/usr/local/Ascend/driver, /usr/local/dcmi, /usr/local/bin/npu-smi, /etc/ascend_install.info, /etc/hccn.conf (all :ro)

2.3 Test host

Item	Value
aiperf	/mnt/venv/bin/aiperf
Tokenizer path	/mnt/sfs_turbo/models/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

2.4 Hosts in this setup

Two hosts on the same private subnet. All addresses below are placeholders — substitute your own.

Role	Private IP (placeholder)	Referred to below as
Inference (NPU)	10.0.0.10	inference host
Test (aiperf)	10.0.0.20	test host

Every script reads the inference host address from INFER_HOST (defaulting to the placeholder), so export INFER_HOST=<your-inference-host> before running them.

SSH keyless configured. If the network drops packets, use ConnectTimeout=30 ServerAliveInterval=10.

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3. Reproduction Procedure

Phase A: Deploy Mode A — TP16 single engine (for C1 scenario)

On the inference host:

# Clean any running sglang containers first
docker rm -f qwen-sglang-tp16 sglang-bf16-r0 sglang-bf16-r1 sglang-bf16-r2 sglang-bf16-r3 \
              sglang-bf16-r4 sglang-bf16-r5 sglang-bf16-r6 sglang-bf16-r7 2>/dev/null

# Launch TP16 single engine (port 6696, all 16 die)
bash /root/launch-sglang-bf16-tp16.sh
# Wait until it prints "READY"
curl -s http://10.0.0.10:6696/health  # must return 200

On the test host:

bash /home/qwen3.6-test/run-sglang-bf16-tp16-c1.sh
# Runs Chat / Sum / Coding at C1 only, results under:
#   /home/qwen3.6-test/sglang-bf16-tp16-c1-YYYYMMDD/{chat,sum,coding}/profile_export_aiperf.json

Phase B: Deploy Mode B — TP2/DP8 8 instances (for C4+ scenario)

On the inference host:

# Clean TP16 first (frees all 16 die)
docker rm -f qwen-sglang-tp16 2>/dev/null

# Launch 8 TP2 instances (ports 6688-6695, 2 die each)
bash /root/launch-sglang-bf16-nextn-tp2dp8.sh
# Wait until it prints "DONE" with all 8 instances READY
for p in 6688 6689 6690 6691 6692 6693 6694 6695; do
  curl -s http://10.0.0.10:$p/health >/dev/null && echo "$p OK" || echo "$p FAIL"
done

On the test host:

bash /home/qwen3.6-test/run-sglang-bf16-nextn-tp2dp8-sticky-v2.sh
# Runs Chat / Sum / Coding at C1/C4/C8/C16 with sticky routing, results under:
#   /home/qwen3.6-test/sglang-bf16-nextn-tp2dp8-sticky-v2-YYYYMMDD/{chat,sum,coding}/concurrency_N/profile_export_aiperf.json

Phase C: Aggregate results into xlsx

python3 /tmp/gen-final-xlsx.py
# Produces /home/qwen3.6-test/sglang-tp2dp8-final-result.xlsx
# 3 blocks: sglang-tp2dp8-sticky-v2 / sglang-tp16-c1 / sglang-BEST
# BEST = C1 from TP16, C4/C8/C16 from TP2/DP8

---

4. Key Rules (MUST follow)

4.1 ✅ Must Follow

1. num-conversations ≥ concurrency × ndp: Sticky routes by session_id % 8. If num-conv < C×8, some instances stay idle, cold-start + queuing dominates, throughput collapses.

   • Measured Chat C16: 43.81 tok/s at num-conv=30 → 94.10 at num-conv=160 (+115%).
   • Required minimums: Chat num-conv=160, Sum/Coding num-conv=80.

2. C1 uses TP16, C4+ uses TP2/DP8: C1 has only 1 concurrent request; sticky pins it to 1/8 instances (14 die idle). TP16 monopolizes 16 die, prefill ~10× faster.

3. BF16 + NEXTN: NEXTN speculative decoding is the primary accelerator (accept len ~3.33 → decode ~3.3×), 2-3× more impactful than w8a8 quantization bandwidth savings.

4. Each TP2 spans only 2 die within the same NPU: davinci0-1, 2-3, ..., 14-15. Never cross-NPU — minimizes HCCL communication overhead.

4.2 ❌ Prohibitions

1. w8a8 + NEXTN incompatible: sglang v0.5.14 + modelslim w8a8 + --speculative-algorithm NEXTN → MoE scheme=None crash (AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'create_weights'). w8a8 must drop NEXTN, degrading performance.

2. num-conversations < concurrency × ndp: Instances idle, cold-start dominates, high-concurrency throughput collapses.

3. C1 with sticky multi-instance: Single request lands on 1 instance only, 7/8 compute wasted.

4. TP2 cross-NPU: High HCCL overhead. Keep TP2 within same NPU's 2 die.

---

5. Deployment Parameters

5.1 Common Environment Variables

ASCEND_USE_FIA=1
HCCL_OP_EXPANSION_MODE=AIV
PYTORCH_NPU_ALLOC_CONF=expandable_segments:True
SGLANG_SET_CPU_AFFINITY=1
STREAMS_PER_DEVICE=32

5.2 Mode A: TP16 Single Engine (C1)

Parameter	Value	Notes
--tp-size	16	All 16 die
--port	6696
--chunked-prefill-size	4096
--max-running-requests	32
--mem-fraction-static	0.80
--disable-radix-cache		C1 doesn't need cache
--speculative-algorithm	NEXTN	Speculative decoding
--speculative-num-steps	3
--speculative-eagle-topk	1
--speculative-num-draft-tokens	4
HCCL_BUFFSIZE	1	Single process, no cross-die
SGLANG_ENABLE_OVERLAP_PLAN_STREAM	0
GLOO_SOCKET_IFNAME / HCCL_SOCKET_IFNAME	enp23s0f3	TP16 multi-die needs socket IF

5.3 Mode B: TP2/DP8 8 Instances (C4+)

Parameter	Value	Notes
--tp-size	2	2 die per instance
--port	6688-6695	8 ports
--chunked-prefill-size	2048
--max-running-requests	64
--mem-fraction-static	0.80
radix cache	enabled (default)	Sticky + prompt reuse hits
--speculative-algorithm	NEXTN	Same as Mode A
HCCL_BUFFSIZE	512	TP2 cross-die comms
SGLANG_ENABLE_OVERLAP_PLAN_STREAM	1	Overlap plan

5.4 Docker Device Mapping

# Mode A (TP16): map all 16 die
--device /dev/davinci0 ... --device /dev/davinci15

# Mode B (TP2/DP8 instance i): map die 2i, 2i+1
--device /dev/davinci${2i} --device /dev/davinci${2i+1}

Common devices for both: --device /dev/davinci_manager --device /dev/devmm_svm --device /dev/hisi_hdc

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6. Test Parameters

6.1 Three Scenarios

Scenario	ISL	OSL	request-count	num-conversations
Chat	128	256	300	160
Summarization	1024	128	200	80
Coding Agent	16384	4096	200 (50 for C1 TP16)	80

Coding uses --seq-dist "16384|1024,4096|256:100" --random-seed 42.

6.2 Key Test Parameters

Parameter	Value	Notes
--concurrency	1,4,8,16	Four levels (TP16 test is C1-only)
--connection-reuse-strategy	sticky-user-sessions	Session affinity
--session-header	X-Session-ID	Route by sid % 8 to 8 instances
--num-conversations	≥ concurrency × 8	Critical! See §4.1
--extra-inputs	ignore_eos:true min_tokens:OSL	Force full-length output for stable measurement

6.3 Routing Strategy

• C1: single URL → TP16 port 6696
• C4/C8/C16: 8 URLs + sticky-user-sessions → TP2/DP8 ports 6688-6695

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7. Files in This Package

sglang-qwen36-ascend-best-practice/
├── SKILL.md                                    ← this file (full reproduction guide)
├── scripts/
│   ├── launch-sglang-bf16-tp16.sh              ← Mode A: TP16 single engine (deploy on 166)
│   ├── launch-sglang-bf16-nextn-tp2dp8.sh      ← Mode B: 8 TP2/DP8 instances (deploy on 166)
│   ├── run-sglang-bf16-tp16-c1.sh              ← C1 three-scenario test (run on 96)
│   ├── run-sglang-bf16-nextn-tp2dp8-sticky-v2.sh ← C4/C8/C16 three-scenario test (run on 96)
│   └── gen-final-xlsx.py                       ← aggregate results into xlsx
├── config/
│   └── env-and-params.md                       ← parameter reference tables
├── data/
│   └── sglang-tp2dp8-final-result.xlsx         ← verified result (3 blocks)
└── references/
    ├── gap-analysis-prd.md                     ← root-cause analysis of prior gap
    └── verified-results.md                     ← measured numbers + comparison vs Exp2

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8. Operating Procedure (end-to-end)

1. C1 scenario: Clean all containers → launch TP16 (launch-sglang-bf16-tp16.sh) → run C1 three scenarios → record results.
2. C4+ scenario: Clean TP16 → launch TP2/DP8 8 instances (launch-sglang-bf16-nextn-tp2dp8.sh) → run C4/C8/C16 three scenarios → record results.
3. Aggregate: C1 from TP16, C4/C8/C16 from TP2/DP8, merge as BEST, output xlsx via gen-final-xlsx.py.
4. Cleanup: docker rm -f all sglang containers after testing, release die.

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9. Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
C1 per-user throughput low (~110)	sticky pinned 1 req to 1/8 instance	Use TP16 single engine for C1 (Mode A)
Chat C16 collapses (~43)	num-conversations too low	Set num-conv ≥ C×8 (Chat=160, Sum/Coding=80)
MoE scheme=None crash	w8a8 + NEXTN incompatible	Use BF16 (not w8a8), or drop NEXTN
SSH Connection closed	network packet loss	Retry with ConnectTimeout=30 ServerAliveInterval=10
Instance not READY	cold start ~3-5 min	Wait up to 120 × 5s = 10 min; check /tmp/sglang-bf16-rN.log
Port conflict	prior container still bound	docker rm -f all sglang containers first