BSP Pro: a Java-based BSP performance profiling system

The paper introduces a new parallel performance profiling system for the Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) model. The profiling system, called BSP Pro, consists of a performance profiling tool, BSP Profiler and a performance visualisation tool, BSP Visualiser. The aim of BSP Pro is to assist in the analysis and improvement of BSP program performance by minimising load imbalance among processes. BSP Pro is different from other systems, such as the profiling tools within the Oxford BSP toolset, in terms of both its features and its implementation. It uses BSP Profiler to trace and generate more comprehensive profiling information resulting from BSP program executions. The profiling information is then visualised and shown as performance profiling graphs using BSP Visualiser. The visualising component of BSP Pro is fully developed in Java and utilises Java graphics to expose and highlight process load imbalance in both computation and interprocess communication.