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What MPI Could (and Cannot) Do for Mesh-Partitioning on Non-homogeneous Networks

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Recent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface (EuroPVM/MPI 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 4192))

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Abstract

We discuss the mesh-partitioning load-balancing problem for non-homogeneous communication systems, and investigate whether the MPI process topology functionality can aid in solving the problem. An example kernel shows that specific communication patterns can benefit substantially from a non-trivial MPI topology implementation, achieving improvements beyond a factor of five for certain system configurations. Still, the topology functionality lacks expressivity to deal effectively with the mesh-partitioning problem. A mild extension to MPI is suggested, which, however, still cannot exclude possibly sub-optimal partitioning results. Solving instead the mesh-partitioning problem outside of MPI requires knowledge of the communication system. We discuss ways in which such could be provided by MPI in a portable way. Finally, we formulate and discuss a more general affinity scheduling problem.

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Berti, G., Träff, J.L. (2006). What MPI Could (and Cannot) Do for Mesh-Partitioning on Non-homogeneous Networks. In: Mohr, B., Träff, J.L., Worringen, J., Dongarra, J. (eds) Recent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface. EuroPVM/MPI 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4192. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11846802_42

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11846802_42

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-39110-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39112-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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