An Architectural Style for High-Performance Asymmetrical Parallel Computations

An Architectural Style for High-Performance Asymmetrical Parallel Computations (Poster)
Student: David Woollard, USC/ISR
Advisor: Nenad Medvidovic, USC/ISR
Abstract: Researchers with deep knowledge of scientific domains are becoming more interested in developing highly-adaptive and irregular (asymmetrical) parallel computations, leading to development challenges for both delivery of data for computation and mapping of processes to physical resources. Using software engineering principles, we have developed a new communications protocol and architectural style for asymmetrical parallel computations called ADaPT.

Utilizing the support of architecturally-aware middleware, we show that ADaPT provides a more efficient solution in terms of message passing and load balancing than asymmetrical parallel computations using collective calls in the Message-Passing Interface (MPI) or more advanced frameworks implementing explicit load-balancing policies. Additionally, developers using ADaPT gain significant windfall from good practices in software engineering, including implementation-level support of architectural artifacts and separation of computational loci from communication protocols.
Bio: David Woollard received his B.S. in Computer Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 2003. Woollard was granted one of 17 undergraduate research fellowships given world-wide by the Intel corporation in 2002 and was awarded the Viterbi School of Engineering Dean's Award for Academic Achievement in 2003.

Woollard completed his M.S. in Computer Science while holding a joint position in USC's Laboratory of Neural Dynamics and the Center for Software Engineering's software architectures research group. His master's thesis was entitled "Reducing Delivery and Load Balancing Costs in High Performance Computing: A Software Engineering Approach." Woollard is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering under the guidance of Dr. Nenad Medvidovic and his current research interests lie in the application of software architectures to high performance scientific computing.