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The Scalable Modeling System: Directive-based Code Parallelization For Distributed and Shared Memory Computers

Abstract

A directive-based parallelization tool called the Scalable Modeling System (SMS) is described. The user inserts directives in the form of comments into existing Fortran code. SMS translates the code and directives into a parallel version that runs efficiently on shared and distributed memory high-performance computing platforms including the SGI Origin, IBM SP2, Cray T3E, Sun, and Alpha and Intel clusters. Twenty directives are available to support operations including array re-declarations, inter-process communications, loop translations, and parallel I/O operations. SMS also provides tools to support incremental parallelization and debugging that significantly reduces code parallelization time from months to weeks of effort. SMS is intended for applications using regular structured grids that are solved using finite difference approximation or spectral methods. It has been used to parallelize 10 atmospheric and oceanic models, but the tool is sufficiently general that it can be applied to other structured grids codes. Recent performance comparisons demonstrate that the Eta, Hybrid Coordinate Ocean model and Regional Ocean Modeling System model, parallelized using SMS, perform as well or better than their OpenMP or Message Passing Interface counterparts.

Article / Publication Data
Active/Online
YES
Volume
29
Available Metadata
Accepted On
March 10, 2003
DOI ↗
Fiscal Year
Publication Name
Parallel Computing
Published On
August 01, 2003
Final Online Publication On
July 01, 2003
Print Volume
29
Print Number
8
Page Range
995–1020
Submitted On
July 10, 2002
URL ↗

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Authors

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