Basic HTML version of Foils prepared August 23 1996

Foil 19 General Philosophy from PetaSoft Meeting

From Software Strategy for JNAC (PetaFlops) Initiative JNAC (PetaFlops) Presentation -- August 28,1996. by Geoffrey C. Fox


Define a "clean" model for machine architecture
  • Memory hierarchy including caches and geomterical (distributed) effects
Define a low level "Program Execution Model" (PEM) which allows one to describe movement of information and computation in the machine
  • This can be thought of as "MPI"/assembly language of the machine
On top of low level PEM, one can build an hierarchical (layered) software model
  • At the top of this layered software model, one finds objects or Problem Solving Environments (PSE's)
  • At an intermediate level there is Parallel C C++ or Fortran
One can program at each layer of the software and augment it by "escaping" to a lower level to improve performance
  • Directives (HPF assertions) and explicit insertion of lower level code (HPF extrinsics) are possible



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