A survey of parallel execution strategies for transitive closure and logic programs

An important feature of database technology of the nineties is the use of parallelism for speeding up the execution of complex queries. This technology is being tested in several experimental database architectures and a few commercial systems for conventional select-project-join queries. In particular, hash-based fragmentation is used to distribute data to disks under the control of different processors in order to perform selections and joins in parallel. With the development of new query languages, and in particular with the definition of transitive closure queries and of more general logic programming queries, the new dimension of recursion has been added to query processing. Recursive queries are complex; at the same time, their regular structure is particularly suited for parallel execution, and parallelism may give a high efficiency gain. We survey the approaches to parallel execution of recursive queries that have been presented in the recent literature. We observe that research on parallel execution of recursive queries is separated into two distinct subareas, one focused on the transitive closure of Relational Algebra expressions, the other one focused on optimization of more general Datalog queries. Though the subareas seem radically different because of the approach and formalism used, they have many common features. This is not surprising, because most typical Datalog queries can be solved by means of the transitive closure of simple algebraic expressions. We first analyze the relationship between the transitive closure of expressions in Relational Algebra and Datalog programs. We then review sequential methods for evaluating transitive closure, distinguishing iterative and direct methods. We address the parallelization of these methods, by discussing various forms of parallelization. Data fragmentation plays an important role in obtaining parallel execution; we describe hash-based and semantic fragmentation. Finally, we consider Datalog queries, and present general methods for parallel rule execution; we recognize the similarities between these methods and the methods reviewed previously, when the former are applied to linear Datalog queries. We also provide a quantitative analysis that shows the impact of the initial data distribution on the performance of methods

A Class of Parallel Tiled Linear Algebra Algorithms for Multicore Architectures

As multicore systems continue to gain ground in the High Performance Computing world, linear algebra algorithms have to be reformulated or new algorithms have to be developed in order to take advantage of the architectural features on these new processors. Fine grain parallelism becomes a major requirement and introduces the necessity of loose synchronization in the parallel execution of an operation. This paper presents an algorithm for the Cholesky, LU and QR factorization where the operations can be represented as a sequence of small tasks that operate on square blocks of data. These tasks can be dynamically scheduled for execution based on the dependencies among them and on the availability of computational resources. This may result in an out of order execution of the tasks which will completely hide the presence of intrinsically sequential tasks in the factorization. Performance comparisons are presented with the LAPACK algorithms where parallelism can only be exploited at the level of the BLAS operations and vendor implementations

Implementation of parallel algorithm for transient stability analysis on a message passing multicomputer

Real time transient stability analysis is a challenging computing problem. In order to speed up the solution of this problem, parallel processing technologies have been applied. In this paper, the implementation of parallel algorithms for power system transient stability analysis on a message passing multicomputer is described. Both parallelism-in-space and parallelism-in-time are exploited. Test simulations are performed for two large-scale power systems using an IBM SP2 parallel computer. Speedup results are presented to show the performance of the proposed algorithms.published_or_final_versio

Preparing sparse solvers for exascale computing.

Sparse solvers provide essential functionality for a wide variety of scientific applications. Highly parallel sparse solvers are essential for continuing advances in high-fidelity, multi-physics and multi-scale simulations, especially as we target exascale platforms. This paper describes the challenges, strategies and progress of the US Department of Energy Exascale Computing project towards providing sparse solvers for exascale computing platforms. We address the demands of systems with thousands of high-performance node devices where exposing concurrency, hiding latency and creating alternative algorithms become essential. The efforts described here are works in progress, highlighting current success and upcoming challenges. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Numerical algorithms for high-performance computational science'

Algebraic Multigrid for Disordered Systems and Lattice Gauge Theories

The construction of multigrid operators for disordered linear lattice operators, in particular the fermion matrix in lattice gauge theories, by means of algebraic multigrid and block LU decomposition is discussed. In this formalism, the effective coarse-grid operator is obtained as the Schur complement of the original matrix. An optimal approximation to it is found by a numerical optimization procedure akin to Monte Carlo renormalization, resulting in a generalized (gauge-path dependent) stencil that is easily evaluated for a given disorder field. Applications to preconditioning and relaxation methods are investigated.Comment: 43 pages, 14 figures, revtex4 styl

Minimizing Communication for Eigenproblems and the Singular Value Decomposition

Algorithms have two costs: arithmetic and communication. The latter represents the cost of moving data, either between levels of a memory hierarchy, or between processors over a network. Communication often dominates arithmetic and represents a rapidly increasing proportion of the total cost, so we seek algorithms that minimize communication. In \cite{BDHS10} lower bounds were presented on the amount of communication required for essentially all $O(n^3)$-like algorithms for linear algebra, including eigenvalue problems and the SVD. Conventional algorithms, including those currently implemented in (Sca)LAPACK, perform asymptotically more communication than these lower bounds require. In this paper we present parallel and sequential eigenvalue algorithms (for pencils, nonsymmetric matrices, and symmetric matrices) and SVD algorithms that do attain these lower bounds, and analyze their convergence and communication costs.Comment: 43 pages, 11 figure

A Parallel Direct Method for Finite Element Electromagnetic Computations Based on Domain Decomposition

High performance parallel computing and direct (factorization-based) solution methods have been the two main trends in electromagnetic computations in recent years. When time-harmonic (frequency-domain) Maxwell\u27s equation are directly discretized with the Finite Element Method (FEM) or other Partial Differential Equation (PDE) methods, the resulting linear system of equations is sparse and indefinite, thus harder to efficiently factorize serially or in parallel than alternative methods e.g. integral equation solutions, that result in dense linear systems. State-of-the-art sparse matrix direct solvers such as MUMPS and PARDISO don\u27t scale favorably, have low parallel efficiency and high memory footprint. This work introduces a new class of sparse direct solvers based on domain decomposition method, termed Direct Domain Decomposition Method (D3M), which is reliable, memory efficient, and offers very good parallel scalability for arbitrary 3D FEM problems. Unlike recent trends in approximate/low-rank solvers, this method focuses on `numerically exact\u27 solution methods as they are more reliable for complex `real-life\u27 models. The proposed method leverages physical insights at every stage of the development through a new symmetric domain decomposition method (DDM) with one set of Lagrange multipliers. Applying a special regularization scheme at the interfaces, either artificial loss or gain is introduced to each domain to eliminate non-physical internal resonances. A block-wise recursive algorithm based on Takahashi relationship is proposed for the efficient computation of discrete Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) map to reduce the volumetric problem from all domains into an auxiliary surfacial problem defined on the domain interfaces only. Numerical results show up to 50% run-time saving in DtN map computation using the proposed block-wise recursive algorithm compared to alternative approaches. The auxiliary unknowns on the domain interfaces form a considerably (approximately an order of magnitude) smaller block-wise sparse matrix, which is efficiently factorized using a customized block LDL$^T$ factorization with restricted pivoting to ensure stability. The parallelization of the proposed D3M is realized based on Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). Recent advances in parallel dense direct solvers, have shifted toward parallel implementation that rely on DAG scheduling to achieve highly efficient asynchronous parallel execution. However, adaptation of such schemes to sparse matrices is harder and often impractical. In D3M, computation of each domain\u27s discrete DtN map ``embarrassingly parallel\u27\u27, whereas the customized block LDLT is suitable for a block directed acyclic graph (B-DAG) task scheduling, similar to that used in dense matrix parallel direct solvers. In this approach, computations are represented as a sequence of small tasks that operate on domains of DDM or dense matrix blocks of the reduced matrix. These tasks can be statically scheduled for parallel execution using their DAG dependencies and weights that depend on estimates of computation and communication costs. Comparisons with state-of-the-art exact direct solvers on electrically large problems suggest up to 20% better parallel efficiency, 30% - 3X less memory and slightly faster in runtime, while maintaining the same accuracy

木を用いた構造化並列プログラミング

High-level abstractions for parallel programming are still immature. Computations on complicated data structures such as pointer structures are considered as irregular algorithms. General graph structures, which irregular algorithms generally deal with, are difficult to divide and conquer. Because the divide-and-conquer paradigm is essential for load balancing in parallel algorithms and a key to parallel programming, general graphs are reasonably difficult. However, trees lead to divide-and-conquer computations by definition and are sufficiently general and powerful as a tool of programming. We therefore deal with abstractions of tree-based computations. Our study has started from Matsuzaki’s work on tree skeletons. We have improved the usability of tree skeletons by enriching their implementation aspect. Specifically, we have dealt with two issues. We first have implemented the loose coupling between skeletons and data structures and developed a flexible tree skeleton library. We secondly have implemented a parallelizer that transforms sequential recursive functions in C into parallel programs that use tree skeletons implicitly. This parallelizer hides the complicated API of tree skeletons and makes programmers to use tree skeletons with no burden. Unfortunately, the practicality of tree skeletons, however, has not been improved. On the basis of the observations from the practice of tree skeletons, we deal with two application domains: program analysis and neighborhood computation. In the domain of program analysis, compilers treat input programs as control-flow graphs (CFGs) and perform analysis on CFGs. Program analysis is therefore difficult to divide and conquer. To resolve this problem, we have developed divide-and-conquer methods for program analysis in a syntax-directed manner on the basis of Rosen’s high-level approach. Specifically, we have dealt with data-flow analysis based on Tarjan’s formalization and value-graph construction based on a functional formalization. In the domain of neighborhood computations, a primary issue is locality. A naive parallel neighborhood computation without locality enhancement causes a lot of cache misses. The divide-and-conquer paradigm is known to be useful also for locality enhancement. We therefore have applied algebraic formalizations and a tree-segmenting technique derived from tree skeletons to the locality enhancement of neighborhood computations.電気通信大学201

Gaussian block algorithms for solving path problems

Path problems are a family of optimization and enumeration problems that reduce to determination or evaluation of paths in a directed graph. In this paper we give a convenient algebraic description of block algorithms for solving path problems. We also develop block versions of two Gaussian algorithms, which are counterparts of the conventional Jordan and escalator method respectively. The correctness of the two considered block algorithms is discussed, and their complexity is analyzed. A parallel implementation of the block Jordan algorithm on a transputer network is presented, and the obtained experimental results are listed

Application-tailored Linear Algebra Algorithms: A search-based Approach

In this paper, we tackle the problem of automatically generating algorithms for linear algebra operations by taking advantage of problem-specific knowledge. In most situations, users possess much more information about the problem at hand than what current libraries and computing environments accept; evidence shows that if properly exploited, such information leads to uncommon/unexpected speedups. We introduce a knowledge-aware linear algebra compiler that allows users to input matrix equations together with properties about the operands and the problem itself; for instance, they can specify that the equation is part of a sequence, and how successive instances are related to one another. The compiler exploits all this information to guide the generation of algorithms, to limit the size of the search space, and to avoid redundant computations. We applied the compiler to equations arising as part of sensitivity and genome studies; the algorithms produced exhibit, respectively, 100- and 1000-fold speedups