VODCA: View-Oriented, Distributed, Cluster-based Approach to parallel computing

This project aims to provide a friendly and high-performance parallel programming environment on cluster computers based on Distributed Shared Memory (DSM).

A cluster computer is a collection of workstations or PCs that are interconnected via a Local Area Network (LAN). It can take advantage of high-bandwidth LAN techniques. A cluster computer usually consists of commodity off-the-shelf components, which can provide potentially similar capabilities to commercial supercomputers such as IBM SP2, but with better scalability and at a much lower cost.

However, the existing programming environments on cluster computers, such as MPICH or LAM/MPI, are based on message passing programming style, i.e. Message Passing Interface (MPI), which is complex and difficult for inter-process communications.

A friendly and easy way for inter-process communications is using shared memory, which is, however, not available on cluster computers. Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) systems can provide virtual shared memory on cluster computers, but their performance generally becomes poor when the number of processes increases.

This project is aimimg at providing a parallel programming environment which is friendly and efficient. A high-performance DSM system, also called VODCA, has been implemented. The system is based on a novel View-Oriented Parallel Programming (VOPP) and implements a View-based Consistency model and a View-Oriented Update Protocol with Integrated Diff (VOUPID). The performance of the system are comparable with that of the MPI systems.

A free copy of the VODCA system is available by request.

People

Dr Zhiyi Huang, Dept of Computer Science, University of Otago

Dr Martin Purvis, Professor, Dept of Information Science, University of Otago

Dr Paul Werstein, Dept of Computer Science, University of Otago

Dr Wenguang Chen, Associate Professor, Dept of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, China

Dr Weimin Zheng, Professor, Dept of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, China

Dr Chengzheng Sun, Professor, School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Papers

  • Performance Comparison between VOPP and MPI, Zhiyi Huang, Martin Purvis, and Paul Werstein, in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies, pp.343-347, IEEE Computer Society, Dalian, December 2005.

  • Performance Evaluation of View-Oriented Parallel Programming, Zhiyi Huang, Martin Purvis, and Paul Werstein, in Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP05), pp.251-258, IEEE Computer Society, Oslo, June 2005.

  • View Oriented Update Protocol with Integrated Diff for View-based Consistency, Zhiyi Huang, Martin Purvis, and Paul Werstein, The 2005 International Workshop on DSM (DSM2005), in Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM Symposium on Cluster Computing and Grid 2005 (CCGrid05), IEEE Computer Society, Cardiff, May 2005.

  • View-Oriented Parallel Programming and View-based Consistency, Zhiyi Huang, Martin Purvis, and Paul Werstein, in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (LNCS 3320), pp.505-518, Springer, Singapore, December 2004.

  • A Performance Comparison of DSM, PVM, and MPI, Paul Werstein, Mark Pethick, and Zhiyi Huang, in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (Editors P. Fan and H. Shen), pp476-482, IEEE Press, Chengdu, August 2003.

  • View-based Consistency and its Implementation, Zhiyi Huang, Chengzheng Sun, Stephen Cranefield, and Martin Purvis, in Proceedings of the 1st IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid 2001), pp.74-81, IEEE Computer Society, Brisbane, May 2001.

  • View-Based Consistency and False Sharing Effect in Distributed Shared Memory, Zhiyi Huang, Chengzheng Sun, Martin Purvis, and Stephen Cranefield, in Operating Systems Review, 35(2), pp51-60, SIGOPS, ACM Press, April 2001.

  • View-based Consistency for Distributed Shared Memory, Zhiyi Huang, Chengzheng Sun, Martin Purvis, and Stephen Cranefield, in Proceedings of the 4th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI'2000), July 2000.

    The following are some DSM related web sites.

    Rice Systems Group
    Distributed Shared Memory Home Pages
    The Shrimp Project
    Supercomputing and Parallel Computing Research Groups
    Stanford Parallel Application s for Shared Memory (SPLASH)

    Return to Zhiyi Huang's Home Page

    Dated: 1 May, 2002
    Author: Z. Huang