A Programming Framework for Incremental Data Distribution in Iterative Applications

Successful HPC over desktop grids and non-dedicated NOWs is challenging, since good performance is difficult to achieve due to dynamic workloads. On iterative data-parallel applications, this is addressed by dynamic data distribution. However, current approaches migrate an application from one distribution to another in one single phase, which can impact performance. In this paper, we present D3-ARC, a programming framework to support adaptive and incremental data distribution, so that data migration takes place over several successive iterations. D3-ARC consists of a runtime system and an API for specifying the distribution of arrays as well as how data redistribution takes place. We demonstrate how D3-ARC can be used to develop an incremental strategy for data distribution in a Poisson solver, utilising a runtime feedback mechanism to determine how much data to migrate during each iteration.