NHSE Software Catalog

Multiblock PARTI

url

ftp://hpsl.cs.umd.edu/pub/block_parti_distribution/block_parti.tar.Z

title_line

runtime library for parallelizing multiple
structured grid (multiblock and multigrid) applications written in
Fortran and C

contact

Alan Sussman / als@cs.umd.edu

abstract

Multiblock PARTI is a runtime library for parallelizing multiple
structured grid (e.g., multiblock and multigrid) applications
written in Fortran and C.
The Multiblock Parti is used to produce an SPMD parallel program, and
provides routines that allow an application programmer or a compiler to
Lay out distributed data in a flexible way, to enable good load
balancing and minimize interprocessor communication,
Give high level specifications for performing data movement,
and
Distribute the computation across the processors.
Two types of communication are required in multiple structured grid
applications -- inter-block communication and intra-block communication.
In the runtime system, communication is performed in two phases. First,
a subroutine is called to build a communication schedule that describes
the required data motion, and then another subroutine is called to
perform the data motion (sends and receives on a distributed memory
parallel machine) using a previously built schedule. Such an arrangement
allows a schedule to be be used multiple times in an iterative algorithm.
The library defines a descriptor in each processor that both describes the
global structure of a distributed array, and also caches information about
the portion of the array local to a processor.
The library provides routines for using distributed array descriptors
for address translation and for interprocessor communication (regular
section moves and filling ghost cells) using communication schedules.

environment

Any distributed memory system that supports message passing
(currently implemented on Intel iPSC/860 and Paragon, IBM SP1/2,
TMC CM5, network of workstations via PVM)

keywords

data partitioning; distributed memory multiprocessor;
multigrid problem; multiblock problem;
runtime system; communication library; distributed arrays

description

http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/hpsl/compilers/base_mblock.html