Stream parallel skeleton optimization

TL;DR

This paper analyzes stream parallel skeletons like pipelines and farms, demonstrating that any composition can be transformed into an optimal 'normal form' that improves performance and processor utilization, validated through experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a method to rewrite any stream parallel skeleton into a single farm normal form, enhancing efficiency and resource use.

Findings

Normal form achieves equal or better service time.

Rewritten skeletons improve processor utilization.

Experimental validation supports the normal form's effectiveness.

Abstract

We discuss the properties of the composition of stream parallel skeletons such as pipelines and farms. By looking at the ideal performance figures assumed to hold for these skeletons, we show that any stream parallel skeleton composition can always be rewritten into an equivalent "normal form" skeleton composition, delivering a service time which is equal or even better to the service time of the original skeleton composition, and achieving a better utilization of the processors used. The normal form is defined as a single farm built around a sequential worker code. Experimental results are discussed that validate this normal form.