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Tools and techniques for non-invasive explicit parallelization

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Abstract

This paper presents an overview of our experiments in integrating modern software engineering tools and techniques with the process of developing parallel applications for distributed memory architectures. The main goal was to determine the methods that have the potential of reducing the complexities associated with explicit parallelization. We experimented with template metaprogramming, aspect-oriented programming, program transformation engine, and a domain-specific language called Hi-PaL. The pros and cons of using each technique for explicit parallelization are presented in this paper. Our experiments demonstrate that through a combination of modern software engineering tools and techniques, the effort involved in explicit parallelization can be reduced by 90 % without any significant loss in performance.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Jeff Gray, Dr. Frédéric Jouault, and Dr. Suman Roychoudhury for their guidance on the software engineering techniques used in this research. This work was made possible in part by a grant of high performance computing resources from the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the National Science Foundation Award CNS-0420614.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Texas Advanced Computing Center, J.J. Pickle Research Campus, Bldg. 196, Ste. 1.108, 10100 Burnet Road, Austin, TX, 78758-4497, USA

    Ritu Arora

  2. Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1300 University Boulevard, Birmingham, AL, 35294-1170, USA

    Purushotham Bangalore

  3. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Smetanova 17, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia

    Marjan Mernik

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  1. Ritu Arora
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  2. Purushotham Bangalore
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  3. Marjan Mernik
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Correspondence to Ritu Arora.

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Arora, R., Bangalore, P. & Mernik, M. Tools and techniques for non-invasive explicit parallelization. J Supercomput 62, 1583–1608 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-012-0822-6

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