[SX- 4 SERIES TECHNICAL HIGHLIGHTS]

Outline of Message Passing Interface MPI/SX

Shoichi Sakon, Manager
Masanori Tamura, Assistant Manager
Language Processor Development Department, 1st Computers Software Division, Computers Software Operations Unit,
NEC Corporation

IXS Parallel level

Mem Mem
MPI inter-node
SX WATCHING and intra-node

IXS
Mem Mem MPI inter-node
+
and microtask
INTRODUCTION MPI/SX intra-node
(automatic parallelization)

Computers are handling more and more
complex problems as they attain higher pro-
cessing speeds, but the demand for even
greater processing power knows no limits. To
satisfy this demand, the Supercomputer SX-4
Series supports parallel processing with High
Performance Fortran (HPF) and a Message
Passing Interface (MPI) not only for the con-
ventional shared memory but also for distrib-
uted memory. This article focuses on paral-
lel processing for distributed memory with a
look at MPI/SX, a product for the SX Series.
PARALLEL PROCESSING FOR
DISTRIBUTED MEMORY
Message Passing Interface (MPI)
Message passing has long been studied as
a method of implementing parallel processing
for distributed memory and a number of inter-
faces of this type have been proposed. In
1994, these proposals were combined to form
a new interface specification called MPI. Pro-
gramming with a message passing interface
imposes a great burden on the user because
everything from data placement to data trans-
fer must be coded. Despite this disadvantage,
a message passing interface brings out the best
from a system if tuned appropriately. MPI has
become popular with a large number of users
as a physical standard.
High Performance Fortran (HPF)
The HPF is based on the data parallel con-
cept where programs are divided to run on
parallel processing according to data place-
ment specified by the user. This data parallel
language was developed from Fortran to pro-
vide parallel processing functions with dis-
tributed memory. The user is only required to
specify the placement of distributed data, then
an HPF compiler automatically handles data
transfer and other functions. However, the
current HPF is not very popular yet because
its functions are still too limited, making it dif-
ficult to use to create application software.
(HPF will be discussed in more detail at a
later date.)
MPI Programming
In MPI programming, a unit of processing
is described in the MPI specifications as an
MPI process. However, MPI process gener-
ation is not defined in the MPI specifications
but dependent on the processing system.
(Most MPI implementation specifies the num-
ber of MPI processes at program activation.)
The user obtains information to identify the
number of processes and the process type
(called rank) within the program, and data is
sent and received using the following two
main methods:
(1) Point-to-point communication where a
process transmitting data and a process
receiving data are paired
(2) Collective operation (communication or
synchronous processing) where several
processes share common data
MPI can be used with the Fortran or C lan-
guage (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 Simple MPI Program
Features of MPI/SX
MPI/SX is an MPI product for the Super-
computer SX-4 Series designed to support a
variety of SX system configurations to satis-
fy user requirement. In a multinode system,
MPI/SX allows distributed parallel processing
using MPI between nodes and shared parallel
processing within a node, or distributed par-
allel processing both between and within
nodes (Fig. 2). This product also allows dis-
tributed parallel processing using MPI in a
single-node system. In addition, the MPI/SX
has the following features:
Fig. 2 Uses of MPI/SX
(1) Full support for MPI-1
MPI/SX supports all the functions of the
currently popular MPI-1. This means that
MPI programs can be ported easily from other
systems.
(2) High performance
The global memory function (SX-GM)
enables several processes to share memory
and the internode crossbar switch (IXS) links
nodes at high speed. By making effective use
of these functions, MPI/SX enhances com-
munication performance which is critical for
MPI. MPI communication performance is
expressed by the fixed start-up time (latency)
which is not dependent on the communicated
data volume, and the sustained speed (through-
put) which is proportional to the communi-
cated data volume. MPI/SX provides high per-
formance in terms of both latency and through-
put (Table 1).
Table 1 MPI/SX (SUPER-UX R8.1)
Performance
Latency Throughput
Intra-node 9.2 µsec 7.2 Gbytes/s
Inter-node 19.8 µsec 4.5 Gbytes/s
(3) Tool linkage
MPI/SX programs can be compiled, linked,
and executed from PSUITE, an integrated pro-
gram development environment popular for its
ease of use (Fig. 3). PSUITE can also be used
to activate the VAMPIR (*) tool to display the
Fig. 3 PSUITE

쐅SX WORLD 쏹 Spring 1998 No.22

Fig. 4 VAMPIR

MPI communication status graphically over

time (Fig. 4).
Outlook for MPI Standardization
The MPI Forum, whose role is to define and
maintain the MPI standard, announced a new
version of the MPI specifications, MPI-2. In
addition to the conventional functions, this
new version has a dynamic process generation
function to create an MPI process from a pro-
gram and a one-sided communication function
to read data from or write data to the memo-
ry space of a remote process.

CONCLUSION
NEC will improve MPI/SX further to attain
even higher communication performance. To
provide a more efficient system with less pro-
gramming load on the user, MPI/SX will fully
support MPI-2 and have stronger linkage with
the PSUITE tools.

쏄VAMPIR is a registered trademark of Forshungs-

zentrum Juelisc GmbH and applies to a product
developed by Pallas of Germany.

Contact:
쏹
Language Processor Development Department, 1st
Computers Software Division, Computers Software
Operations Unit, NEC Corporation
10, Nisshincho 1-chome, Fuchu-shi, Tokyo 183-8501
Japan
Tel : +81-423-33-5370
Fax: +81-423-33-1962
E-mail: sakon@lang1.bsl.tc.nec.co.jp
tmr@lang1.bsl.tc.nec.co.jp

C&C Research Laboratories, NEC Europe Ltd.

Rathausallee 10, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany
Tel : +49-2241-9252-95
Fax: +49-2241-9252-99
E-mail: hempel@ccrl-nece.technopark.gmd.de
ritzdorf@ccrl-nece.technopark.gmd.de
falk@ccrl-nece.technopark.gmd.de