Virtual topologies: A new concurrency abstraction for high-level parallel languages | SpringerLink
Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Virtual topologies: A new concurrency abstraction for high-level parallel languages

Preliminary report

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing (LCPC 1995)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1033))

  • 112 Accesses

Abstract

We present a new concurrency abstraction and implementation technique for high-level (symbolic) parallel languages that allows significant programmer control over load-balancing and mapping of fine-grained lightweight threads. Central to our proposal is the notion of a virtual topology. A virtual topology defines a relation over a collection of virtual processors, and a mapping of those processors to a set of physical processors; processor topologies configured as trees, graphs, butterflies, and meshes are some well-known examples. A virtual topology need not have any correlation with a physical one; it is intended to capture the interconnection structure best suited for a given algorithm. We consider a virtual processor to be an abstraction that defines scheduling, migration and load-balancing policies for the threads it executes. Thus, virtual topologies are intended to provide a simple, expressive and efficient high-level framework for defining complex thread/processor mappings that abstracts low-level details of a physical interconnection.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Nick Carriero and David Gelernter. Linda in Context. Communications of the ACM, 32(4):444–458, April 1989.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Marina Chen, Young-il Choo, and Jingke Li. Compiling Parallel Programs by Optimizing Performance. Journal of Supercomputing, 1(2): 171–207, 1988.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. K.L Clark and S. Gregory. PARLOG: Parallel Programming in Logic. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 8(1): 1–49, 1986.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. William Clinger and Jonathan Rees, editors. Revised4 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme. ACM Lisp Pointers, 4(3), July 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  5. David Saks Greenberg. Full Utilization of Communication Resources. PhD thesis, Yale University, June 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Robert Halstead. Multilisp: A Language for Concurrent Symbolic Computation. Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 7(4):501–538, October 1985.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Paul Hudak. Para-functional Programming in Haskell. In Boleslaw K. Szymanski, editor, Parallel Functional Languages and Compilers. ACM Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Paul Hudak et.al. Report on the Functional Programming Language Haskell, Version 1.2. ACM SIGPLAN Notices, May 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Takayasu Ito and Robert Halstead, Jr., editors. Parallel Lisp: Languages and Systems. Springer-Verlag, 1989. LNCS number 41.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Suresh Jagannathan and James Philbin. A Customizable Substrate for Concurrent Languages. In ACM SIGPLAN '91 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  11. David Kranz, Robert Halstead, and Eric Mohr. Mul-T: A High Performance Parallel Lisp. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Programming Language Design and Implementation, pages 81–91, June 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  12. F. Thomas Leighton. Introduction to Parallel Algorithms and Architectures. Morgan-Kaufmann, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Robin Milner, Mads Tofte, and Robert Harper. The Definition of Standard ML. MIT Press, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Rick Mohr, David Kranz, and Robert Halstead. Lazy Task Creation: A Technique for Increasing the Granularity of Parallel Programs. In Proceedings of the 1990 ACM Conference on Lisp and Functional Programming, June 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  15. J. Gregory Morrisett and Andrew Tolmach. Procs and Locks: A Portable Multiprocessing Platform for Standard ML of New Jersey. In Fourth ACM Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming, pages 198–207, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  16. James Philbin. An Operating System for Modern Languages. PhD thesis, Dept. of Computer Science, Yale University, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  17. John Reppy. CML: A Higher-Order Concurrent Language. In Proceedings of the SIGPLAN'91 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, pages 293–306, June 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Anne Rogers and Keshave Pingali. Process Decomposition Through Locality of Reference. In S1GPLAN'89 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, pages 69–80, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Vijay Saraswat and Martin Rinard. Concurrent Constraint Programming. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, pages 232–246, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Karsten Schwan and Win Bo. Topologies — Distributed Objects on Multicomputers. ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 8(2):111–157, May 1990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Ehud Shapiro, editor. Concurrent Prolog Collected Papers. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  22. V.S. Sunderam. PVM: A Framework for Parallel Distributed Computing. Concurrency: Practice & Experience, 2(4), 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  23. M. Vandevoorde and E. Roberts. WorkCrews: An Abstraction for Controlling Parallelism. International Journal of Parallel Programming, 17(4):347–366, August 1988.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Michael Wolfe. Optimizing Supercompilers for Super Computers. MIT Press, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Division, NEC Research Institute, 4 Independence Way, USA

    James Philbin & Suresh Jagannathan

  2. Department of Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT

    Rajiv Mirani

Authors
  1. James Philbin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Suresh Jagannathan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rajiv Mirani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Chua-Huang Huang Ponnuswamy Sadayappan Utpal Banerjee David Gelernter Alex Nicolau David Padua

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Philbin, J., Jagannathan, S., Mirani, R. (1996). Virtual topologies: A new concurrency abstraction for high-level parallel languages. In: Huang, CH., Sadayappan, P., Banerjee, U., Gelernter, D., Nicolau, A., Padua, D. (eds) Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing. LCPC 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1033. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014217

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014217

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60765-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49446-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation