The Mesh Archetype

Berna L. Massingill

Abstract:

A parallel program archetype aids in the development of reliable, efficient parallel applications with common computation/communication structures by providing development methods and code libraries specific to the structure. This document presents an archetype for mesh computations. It describes the common structure captured by the archetype abstraction, discusses a parallelization strategy for such computations, documents our code library to support this parallelization strategy, and presents a collection of example application programs.

• Introduction: mesh computations
  • Overview
  • Parallelization strategy (distributed memory)
    • Distributing the data
    • Computing new values for grid points
    • Performing I/O
    • Structuring the parallel program
  • Sequential vs. parallel
• Archetype implementation
  • Parameter definitions
  • Data declarations
  • Program skeleton
  • Subroutines and functions
    • Subroutines to redistribute data
    • Subroutines to exchange boundary data
    • Subroutines for global reductions
    • Subroutines for broadcasting data
    • Subroutines for parallel I/O
    • Utility subroutines and functions
• Compiling and linking
• Short example application programs
  • ``Hello, world''
    • Code for host and grid processes
    • Archetype file mesh_uparms.h
  • 1D heat equation
    • Sequential program
    • Parallel program (user-supplied code)
  • 2D Poisson solver
    • Sequential program
    • Parallel program (user-supplied code)
• How to obtain the code
• References
• About this document ...