Implementation of MPI over HTTP

Abstract

Message Passing Interface[2] is the de facto standard for multi-computer and cluster message passing. In this paper we explore a new paradigm of high performance distributed computing by implementing a message passing interface over HTTP[1]. This provides a platform independent implementation of MPI and also develops a base for web based computation to achieve global parallel processing. The conventional approach to message passing is through the use of Parallel Virtual Machine(PVM) or MPI software packages that optimize the communication and the synchronization functions for the message passing paradigm needed in high performance distributed computing environments. However the recent trend in Internet communication has been to use the HTTP for inter-linking information and files across the World Wide Web. The HTTP [1], over the years has matured to be a very efficient tool for communication and is fit enough to warrant consideration as a vehicle for inter-processor communication. The performance of our implementation was compared with the standard MPI implementation over a cluster of workstations connected by a Shared Ethernet network and the results are very encouraging.