Toward a Model for Shared Data Abstraction with Performance

Autor: Simon Dobson, D. M. Goodeve, J. M. Nash, J. R. Davy, P. M. Dew, M. Kara, C.P. Wadsworth
Rok vydání: 1998
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing. 49:156-167
ISSN: 0743-7315
DOI: 10.1006/jpdc.1998.1427
Popis: This paper demonstrates the utility of typed shared data abstractions as an effective high-level means of structuring and coordinating parallel programs. Access to data shared by concurrent processes is expressed through operations of shared abstract data types (SADTs). SADTs abstract low-level concerns of communication and synchronization. The exposition addresses two major challenges: mismatches between representations and actual patterns of usage, and over-specified coherence. A prototype library of SADTs provides a set of implementations for each SADT, supporting stereotypical usage patterns and allowing exploitation of weakened coherence protocols. The efficacy of this approach is demonstrated on both a network of workstations and a dedicated massively parallel computer. A fine-grained irregular task-parallel computation obtained a speedup of 156 on a 256-processor Cray T3D, showing that the high levels of abstraction afforded by SADTs are compatible with efficient and scalable implementation.
Databáze: OpenAIRE