Abstract
A vast body of theoretical research has focused either on overly
simplistic models of parallel computation, notably the PRAM, or overly
sipecific models that have few representatives in the real world. Both
kinds of models encourage exploitation of formal loopholes, rather
than rewarding development of techniques that yield performance across
a range of current and future parallel machines. This paper offers a
new parallel machine model, called LogP, that reflects the critical
technology trends underlying parallel computers. It is intended to
serve as a basis for developing fast, portable parallel algorithms and
to offer guidelines to machine designers. Such a model must strike a
balance between detail and simpliticy in order to reveal important
bottlenecks without making analysis of interesting problems
intractable. The model is based on four parameters that specify
abstractly the computing bandwidth, he communication bandwidth, the
communication delay, and the efficiency of coupling communication and
computation. Portable parallel algorithms typically adapt to the
machine configuration, in terms of these parameters. The utility of
the model is demonstrated through examples that are implemented on the
CM-5.
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