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MCFX: A new parallel programming framework for multicore systems

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Computer Science - Research and Development

Abstract

Parallel computing is going mainstream with the now ubiquitous multicore and cluster systems. Despite the availability of many parallel programming models, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Many application experts are still desperately looking for a better solution to meet their needs.

We present a new parallel programming framework called MCFX to improve the productivity of shared memory parallel programming with a high-level parallel execution model. In MCFX, we introduce the concept of domain-specific parallel schedulers at application level. These schedulers are called executable containers. An executable object is a programming object associated with data and actions (processes). A MCFX executable container can concurrently execute the processes of the executable objects stored in the container. One can customize and instantiate many executable containers in a program. An important goal of project MCFX is to let the domain experts with basic knowledge of MCFX to design reusable parallel programming templates for their domains.

Currently we have a functional implementation of the MCFX kernel in C++, several practical examples and a small set of class templates. Our initial results show that parallel programs written with MCFX can achieve good scalable performance on multicore and SMP machines while maintaining sequential-like programmability and readability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sun Microsystems, 16 Network Circle, 94025, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Liang Chen & Deepankar Bairagi

  2. NVIDIA, 2701 San Tomas Expressway, 95050, Santa Clara, CA, USA

    Yuan Lin

Authors
  1. Liang Chen
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  2. Deepankar Bairagi
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  3. Yuan Lin
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Correspondence to Liang Chen.

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Chen, L., Bairagi, D. & Lin, Y. MCFX: A new parallel programming framework for multicore systems . Comp. Sci. Res. Dev. 23, 217–224 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00450-009-0072-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00450-009-0072-x

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