Portability of Performance in the BSP Model

Abstract

The usefulness of any programming model depends upon whether there is a simple mathematical description of the model, and if it is possible to clearly express useful computations in that model. This chapter describes the Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) model [580], [389], [540], and presents algorithms and associated cost formulae for a parallel scan and sorting algorithm. A growing number of researchers have found that BSP provides a realistic programming model, at a sufficiently high-level of abstraction, for the development of scalable parallel applications [96], [498], [411], [489], [181], [147], [399], [443], [97], [417], as well as research into numerical algorithms [287], [286], [388], [111], [141], [92], [55], [54], [347], [56], sorting and searching [217], [219], [217], [274], [42], simulation [109], [376], [378], communication [218], [323], [177], [458], parallel data structures [377], [216], [221], [220], and parallel programming in general [539], [68], [184], [110], [43], [108], [34]. Whilst having a tractable cost calculus is not the only prerequisite for the development of portable scalable parallel applications, we argue that without a cost calculus there will be no portability of performance.