Publication Abstract
A Dynamic Load Balancing Tool for One and Two Dimensional Parallel Loops
Carino, R.L., & Banicescu, I. (2006). A Dynamic Load Balancing Tool for One and Two Dimensional Parallel Loops. Proc. 5th International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing. Timisoara, Romania: IEEE Computer Society Press. 107-114.
Abstract
This paper describes a dynamic load balancing tool intended for
computational investigators who have little familiarity with programming
for a message-passing environment. Motivated by the PAR DOALL
directive available in some compilers for shared-memory systems,
the tool is designed to simplify the
manual conversion of sequential programs containing computationally
intensive loops with independent iterates into parallel programs
that execute with high efficiency on general-purpose clusters. The tool
implements a dynamic loop scheduling strategy to address load imbalance
which may be induced by the non-uniformity of loop iterate times, and by
the heterogeneity of processors. The tool is based on the Message
Passing Interface library for wide availability. Timings of a
nontrivial application that utilize the tool on a Linux cluster
are presented to demonstrate sample achievable performance.