Porting a vector library: a comparison of MPI, Paris, CMMD and PVM

The paper describes the design and implementation in MPI of the parallel vector library CVL, which is used as the basis for implementing nested data-parallel languages such as NESL and Proteus. We outline the features of CVL, and compare the ease of writing and debugging the portable MPI implementation with our experiences writing previous versions in CM-2 Paris, CM-5 CMMD, and PVM 3.0. We give initial performance results for MPI CVL running on the SP-1, Paragon, and CM-5, and compare them with previous versions of CVL running on the CM-2, CM-5, and Cray C90. We discuss the features of MPI that helped and hindered the effort, and make a plea for better support for certain primitives. Finally, we discuss the design limitations of CVL when implemented on current RISC based MPP architectures, and outline our plans to overcome this by using MPI as a compiler target.<
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