Simulating Parallel Architectures with BSPlab

Abstract. BSPlab is a simulation environment for studying the interplay between hardware and software in parallel computing. It offers the BSPlib parallel programming library and is based on Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) computing [1], [2]. BSPlab contains a set of high-level performance models of parallel architectures. It can be used as a tool for architectural level design space exploration of BSP computers both in research and teaching. The paper introduces BSP, BSPlib and BSPlab. Then it presents the architectural models and their parameters, and discusses how they can be used to make experiments that show how the different aspects of a computer affect the performance of an application.