Cluster Builder -- A DSL to Deploy a Parallel Application Over a Workstation Cluster

TL;DR

ClusterBuilder is a DSL tool that simplifies deploying parallel applications on workstation clusters, enabling easier use of idle networked computers without deep parallel programming knowledge.

Contribution

It introduces a new DSL for deploying parallel applications on clusters, ensuring correctness and demonstrating improved performance over multi-core systems.

Findings

ClusterBuilder simplifies parallel application deployment.

The system is proven correct and deadlock-free.

Cluster-based execution outperforms multi-core processing in tests.

Abstract

Many organisations have a large network of connected computers, which at times may be idle. These could be used to run larger data processing problems were it not for the difficulty of organising and managing the deployment of such applications. ClusterBuilder is designed to make this task much simpler. ClusterBuilder uses its own Domain Specific Language (DSL) to describe the processing required that removes the need for a deep understanding of parallel programming techniques. The application uses extant sequential data objects which are then invoked in a parallel manner. ClusterBuilder uses robust software components and the created architecture is proved to be correct and free from deadlock and livelock. The performance of the system is demonstrated using the Mandelbrot set, which is executed on both a single multi-core processor and a cluster of workstations. It is shown that the cluster-based system has better performance characteristics than a multi-core processor solution.