Automatic memory optimizations for improving MPI derived datatype performance

Surendra Byna, Xian He Sun, Rajeev Thakur, William Gropp

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

MPI derived datatypes allow users to describe noncontiguous memory layout and communicate noncontiguous data with a single communication function. This powerful feature enables an MPI implementation to optimize the transfer of noncontiguous data. In practice, however, many implementations of MPI derived datatypes perform poorly, which makes application developers avoid using this feature. In this paper, we present a technique to automatically select templates that are optimized for memory performance based on the access pattern of derived datatypes. We implement this mechanism in the MPICH2 source code. The performance of our implementation is compared to well-written manual packing/unpacking routines and original MPICH2 implementation. We show that performance for various derived datatypes is significantly improved and comparable to that of optimized manual routines.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationRecent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface - 13th European PVM/MPI User's Group Meeting, Proceedings
PublisherSpringer
Pages238-246
Number of pages9
ISBN (Print)354039110X, 9783540391104
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006
Externally publishedYes
Event13th European PVM/MPI User's Group Meeting - Bonn, Germany
Duration: Sep 17 2006Sep 20 2006

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume4192 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Other

Other13th European PVM/MPI User's Group Meeting
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityBonn
Period9/17/069/20/06

Keywords

  • Derived datatypes
  • MPI
  • MPI performance optimization

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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