Multilanguage parallel programming of heterogeneous machines

A system called Agora was designed and implemented that supports the development of multilanguage parallel applications for heterogeneous machines. Agora hinges on two ideas: the first one is that shared memory can be a suitable abstraction to program concurrent, multilanguage modules running on heterogeneous machines. The second idea is that a shared memory abstraction can be efficiently supported across different computer architectures that are not connected by a physical shared memory, e.g., local area network workstations or ensemble machines. Agora has been in use for more than a year. The authors describe the Agora shared memory and its software implementation on both tightly and loosely coupled architectures. Measurements of the current implementation are also included