Framework for the hybrid parallelisation of simulation codes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a framework that simplifies the process of converting sequential simulation codes into efficient hybrid parallel programs suitable for modern multi-core cluster environments.

Contribution

The framework uses a job model to enable easy integration of sequential code with minimal modifications for parallel execution on clusters.

Findings

Facilitates parallelization of engineering simulation codes

Reduces effort and complexity in hybrid parallel programming

Applicable to multi-core cluster architectures

Abstract

Writing efficient hybrid parallel code is tedious, error-prone, and requires good knowledge of both parallel programming and multithreading such as MPI and OpenMP, resp. Therefore, we present a framework which is based on a job model that allows the user to incorporate his sequential code with manageable effort and code modifications in order to be executed in parallel on clusters or supercomputers built from modern multi-core CPUs. The primary application domain of this framework are simulation codes from engineering disciplines as those are in many cases still sequential and due to their memory and runtime demands prominent candidates for parallelisation.