Exploring Parallel Processing


Book Description

Parallel processing--multiple processing units all working in unison--enables programmers to complete tasks far faster than with a single unit. This hands-on guide explores the theory of parallel processing, offering a good mix of practical experiments that show readers how to develop systems of their own.




Handbook of Parallel Computing and Statistics


Book Description

Technological improvements continue to push back the frontier of processor speed in modern computers. Unfortunately, the computational intensity demanded by modern research problems grows even faster. Parallel computing has emerged as the most successful bridge to this computational gap, and many popular solutions have emerged based on its concepts




Parallel Programming Using C++


Book Description

Foreword by Bjarne Stroustrup Software is generally acknowledged to be the single greatest obstacle preventing mainstream adoption of massively-parallel computing. While sequential applications are routinely ported to platforms ranging from PCs to mainframes, most parallel programs only ever run on one type of machine. One reason for this is that most parallel programming systems have failed to insulate their users from the architectures of the machines on which they have run. Those that have been platform-independent have usually also had poor performance. Many researchers now believe that object-oriented languages may offer a solution. By hiding the architecture-specific constructs required for high performance inside platform-independent abstractions, parallel object-oriented programming systems may be able to combine the speed of massively-parallel computing with the comfort of sequential programming. Parallel Programming Using C++ describes fifteen parallel programming systems based on C++, the most popular object-oriented language of today. These systems cover the whole spectrum of parallel programming paradigms, from data parallelism through dataflow and distributed shared memory to message-passing control parallelism. For the parallel programming community, a common parallel application is discussed in each chapter, as part of the description of the system itself. By comparing the implementations of the polygon overlay problem in each system, the reader can get a better sense of their expressiveness and functionality for a common problem. For the systems community, the chapters contain a discussion of the implementation of the various compilers and runtime systems. In addition to discussing the performance of polygon overlay, several of the contributors also discuss the performance of other, more substantial, applications. For the research community, the contributors discuss the motivations for and philosophy of their systems. As well, many of the chapters include critiques that complete the research arc by pointing out possible future research directions. Finally, for the object-oriented community, there are many examples of how encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism can be used to control the complexity of developing, debugging, and tuning parallel software.




Programming Massively Parallel Processors


Book Description

Programming Massively Parallel Processors: A Hands-on Approach, Second Edition, teaches students how to program massively parallel processors. It offers a detailed discussion of various techniques for constructing parallel programs. Case studies are used to demonstrate the development process, which begins with computational thinking and ends with effective and efficient parallel programs. This guide shows both student and professional alike the basic concepts of parallel programming and GPU architecture. Topics of performance, floating-point format, parallel patterns, and dynamic parallelism are covered in depth. This revised edition contains more parallel programming examples, commonly-used libraries such as Thrust, and explanations of the latest tools. It also provides new coverage of CUDA 5.0, improved performance, enhanced development tools, increased hardware support, and more; increased coverage of related technology, OpenCL and new material on algorithm patterns, GPU clusters, host programming, and data parallelism; and two new case studies (on MRI reconstruction and molecular visualization) that explore the latest applications of CUDA and GPUs for scientific research and high-performance computing. This book should be a valuable resource for advanced students, software engineers, programmers, and hardware engineers. - New coverage of CUDA 5.0, improved performance, enhanced development tools, increased hardware support, and more - Increased coverage of related technology, OpenCL and new material on algorithm patterns, GPU clusters, host programming, and data parallelism - Two new case studies (on MRI reconstruction and molecular visualization) explore the latest applications of CUDA and GPUs for scientific research and high-performance computing




Clojure for the Brave and True


Book Description

For weeks, months—nay!—from the very moment you were born, you’ve felt it calling to you. At long last you’ll be united with the programming language you’ve been longing for: Clojure! As a Lisp-style functional programming language, Clojure lets you write robust and elegant code, and because it runs on the Java Virtual Machine, you can take advantage of the vast Java ecosystem. Clojure for the Brave and True offers a "dessert-first" approach: you’ll start playing with real programs immediately, as you steadily acclimate to the abstract but powerful features of Lisp and functional programming. Inside you’ll find an offbeat, practical guide to Clojure, filled with quirky sample programs that catch cheese thieves and track glittery vampires. Learn how to: –Wield Clojure’s core functions –Use Emacs for Clojure development –Write macros to modify Clojure itself –Use Clojure’s tools to simplify concurrency and parallel programming Clojure for the Brave and True assumes no prior experience with Clojure, the Java Virtual Machine, or functional programming. Are you ready, brave reader, to meet your true destiny? Grab your best pair of parentheses—you’re about to embark on an epic journey into the world of Clojure!




Parallel Processing and Parallel Algorithms


Book Description

Motivation It is now possible to build powerful single-processor and multiprocessor systems and use them efficiently for data processing, which has seen an explosive ex pansion in many areas of computer science and engineering. One approach to meeting the performance requirements of the applications has been to utilize the most powerful single-processor system that is available. When such a system does not provide the performance requirements, pipelined and parallel process ing structures can be employed. The concept of parallel processing is a depar ture from sequential processing. In sequential computation one processor is in volved and performs one operation at a time. On the other hand, in parallel computation several processors cooperate to solve a problem, which reduces computing time because several operations can be carried out simultaneously. Using several processors that work together on a given computation illustrates a new paradigm in computer problem solving which is completely different from sequential processing. From the practical point of view, this provides sufficient justification to investigate the concept of parallel processing and related issues, such as parallel algorithms. Parallel processing involves utilizing several factors, such as parallel architectures, parallel algorithms, parallel programming lan guages and performance analysis, which are strongly interrelated. In general, four steps are involved in performing a computational problem in parallel. The first step is to understand the nature of computations in the specific application domain.




Programming Models for Parallel Computing


Book Description

An overview of the most prominent contemporary parallel processing programming models, written in a unique tutorial style. With the coming of the parallel computing era, computer scientists have turned their attention to designing programming models that are suited for high-performance parallel computing and supercomputing systems. Programming parallel systems is complicated by the fact that multiple processing units are simultaneously computing and moving data. This book offers an overview of some of the most prominent parallel programming models used in high-performance computing and supercomputing systems today. The chapters describe the programming models in a unique tutorial style rather than using the formal approach taken in the research literature. The aim is to cover a wide range of parallel programming models, enabling the reader to understand what each has to offer. The book begins with a description of the Message Passing Interface (MPI), the most common parallel programming model for distributed memory computing. It goes on to cover one-sided communication models, ranging from low-level runtime libraries (GASNet, OpenSHMEM) to high-level programming models (UPC, GA, Chapel); task-oriented programming models (Charm++, ADLB, Scioto, Swift, CnC) that allow users to describe their computation and data units as tasks so that the runtime system can manage computation and data movement as necessary; and parallel programming models intended for on-node parallelism in the context of multicore architecture or attached accelerators (OpenMP, Cilk Plus, TBB, CUDA, OpenCL). The book will be a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers, and any scientist who works with data sets and large computations. Contributors Timothy Armstrong, Michael G. Burke, Ralph Butler, Bradford L. Chamberlain, Sunita Chandrasekaran, Barbara Chapman, Jeff Daily, James Dinan, Deepak Eachempati, Ian T. Foster, William D. Gropp, Paul Hargrove, Wen-mei Hwu, Nikhil Jain, Laxmikant Kale, David Kirk, Kath Knobe, Ariram Krishnamoorthy, Jeffery A. Kuehn, Alexey Kukanov, Charles E. Leiserson, Jonathan Lifflander, Ewing Lusk, Tim Mattson, Bruce Palmer, Steven C. Pieper, Stephen W. Poole, Arch D. Robison, Frank Schlimbach, Rajeev Thakur, Abhinav Vishnu, Justin M. Wozniak, Michael Wilde, Kathy Yelick, Yili Zheng




Introduction to Parallel Processing


Book Description

THE CONTEXT OF PARALLEL PROCESSING The field of digital computer architecture has grown explosively in the past two decades. Through a steady stream of experimental research, tool-building efforts, and theoretical studies, the design of an instruction-set architecture, once considered an art, has been transformed into one of the most quantitative branches of computer technology. At the same time, better understanding of various forms of concurrency, from standard pipelining to massive parallelism, and invention of architectural structures to support a reasonably efficient and user-friendly programming model for such systems, has allowed hardware performance to continue its exponential growth. This trend is expected to continue in the near future. This explosive growth, linked with the expectation that performance will continue its exponential rise with each new generation of hardware and that (in stark contrast to software) computer hardware will function correctly as soon as it comes off the assembly line, has its down side. It has led to unprecedented hardware complexity and almost intolerable dev- opment costs. The challenge facing current and future computer designers is to institute simplicity where we now have complexity; to use fundamental theories being developed in this area to gain performance and ease-of-use benefits from simpler circuits; to understand the interplay between technological capabilities and limitations, on the one hand, and design decisions based on user and application requirements on the other.




Patterns for Parallel Programming


Book Description

The Parallel Programming Guide for Every Software Developer From grids and clusters to next-generation game consoles, parallel computing is going mainstream. Innovations such as Hyper-Threading Technology, HyperTransport Technology, and multicore microprocessors from IBM, Intel, and Sun are accelerating the movement's growth. Only one thing is missing: programmers with the skills to meet the soaring demand for parallel software. That's where Patterns for Parallel Programming comes in. It's the first parallel programming guide written specifically to serve working software developers, not just computer scientists. The authors introduce a complete, highly accessible pattern language that will help any experienced developer "think parallel"-and start writing effective parallel code almost immediately. Instead of formal theory, they deliver proven solutions to the challenges faced by parallel programmers, and pragmatic guidance for using today's parallel APIs in the real world. Coverage includes: Understanding the parallel computing landscape and the challenges faced by parallel developers Finding the concurrency in a software design problem and decomposing it into concurrent tasks Managing the use of data across tasks Creating an algorithm structure that effectively exploits the concurrency you've identified Connecting your algorithmic structures to the APIs needed to implement them Specific software constructs for implementing parallel programs Working with today's leading parallel programming environments: OpenMP, MPI, and Java Patterns have helped thousands of programmers master object-oriented development and other complex programming technologies. With this book, you will learn that they're the best way to master parallel programming too.




Parallel Computing Works!


Book Description

A clear illustration of how parallel computers can be successfully appliedto large-scale scientific computations. This book demonstrates how avariety of applications in physics, biology, mathematics and other scienceswere implemented on real parallel computers to produce new scientificresults. It investigates issues of fine-grained parallelism relevant forfuture supercomputers with particular emphasis on hypercube architecture. The authors describe how they used an experimental approach to configuredifferent massively parallel machines, design and implement basic systemsoftware, and develop algorithms for frequently used mathematicalcomputations. They also devise performance models, measure the performancecharacteristics of several computers, and create a high-performancecomputing facility based exclusively on parallel computers. By addressingall issues involved in scientific problem solving, Parallel ComputingWorks! provides valuable insight into computational science for large-scaleparallel architectures. For those in the sciences, the findings reveal theusefulness of an important experimental tool. Anyone in supercomputing andrelated computational fields will gain a new perspective on the potentialcontributions of parallelism. Includes over 30 full-color illustrations.