Portable and efficient parallel computing using the BSP model

Author

Goudreau, Mark W. ; Lang, Kevin ; Rao, Satish B. ; Suel, Torsten ; Tsantilas, Thanasis

Author_Institution

C&C Res. Lab., NEC USA, Princeton, NJ, USA

Volume

48

Issue

7

fYear

1999

fDate

7/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

670

Lastpage

689

Abstract

The Bulk-Synchronous Parallel (BSP) model was proposed by Valiant as a standard interface between parallel software and hardware. In theory, the BSP model has been shown to allow the asymptotically optimal execution of architecture independent software on a variety of architectures. Our goal in this work is to experimentally examine the practical use of the BSP model on current parallel architectures. We describe the design and implementation of the Green BSP Library, a small library of functions that implement the BSP model, and of several applications that were written for this library. We then discuss the performance of the library and application programs on several parallel architectures. Our results are positive in that we demonstrate efficiency and portability over a range of parallel architectures and show that the BSP cost model is useful for predicting performance trends and estimating execution times

Keywords

computational geometry; parallel architectures; parallel programming; BSP model; application programs; architecture independent software; asymptotically optimal execution; bulk-synchronous parallel model; parallel architectures; parallel computing; parallel software; performance trends; standard interface; Algorithm design and analysis; Computational modeling; Concurrent computing; Cost function; Hardware; Parallel architectures; Parallel processing; Programming profession; Routing; Software libraries;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computers, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9340

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/12.780876

Filename

780876