Semantics and Implementation of Minimally Synchronous ... - LACL

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International Journal of Computer & Information Science, Vol. 5, No. 3, September 2004

Semantics and Implementation of Minimally Synchronous Parallel ML Fr´ed´eric Loulerguea

Fr´ed´eric Gavaa Myrto Arapinisa University Paris Val-de-Marne, France

Abstract This paper presents a new functional parallel language: Minimally Synchronous Parallel ML (MSPML). The execution time can be estimated, dead-locks and indeterminism are avoided. Programs are written as usual ML programs but using a small set of additional functions. Provided functions are used to access the parameters of the parallel machine and to create and operate on a parallel data structure. It follows the execution and cost model of the Message Passing Machine model (MPM). It shares with Bulk Synchronous Parallel ML its syntax and high-level semantics but it has a minimally synchronous distributed semantics. Experiments have been run on a cluster of PC using an implementation of the Diffusion algorithmic skeleton. Keywords: Asynchronous Parallelism, Functional Programming, Deterministic Semantics, Cost Model.

1. Introduction Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) computing is a parallel programming model introduced by Valiant [61, 57] to offer a high degree of abstraction in the same way as PRAM [23] models and yet allow portable and predictable performance on a wide variety of architectures. Bulk synchronous parallelism (and the Coarse-Grained Multicomputer model, CGM, which can be seen as a special case of the BSP model) has been used for a large variety of applications [59]: scientific computing [9, 32], genetic algorithms [12] and genetic programming [19], neural networks [54], parallel databases [4], constraint solvers [28], etc.. It is to notice that “A comparison of the proceedings of the eminent conference in the field, the ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures, between the late eighties and the time from the mid nineties to today reveals a startling change in research focus. Today, the majority of research in parallel algorithms is within the coarse-grained, BSP style, domain” [17]. The main advantages of the BSP model are: • deadlocks are avoided, indeterminism can be either avoided or restricted to very specific cases. For example in the BSPlib [31], indeterminism can only occur when using the direct remote memory access operation a Laboratory of Algorithms, Complexity and Logic University Paris Val-de-Marne, Cr´eteil, France http://mspml.free.fr

Fr´ed´eric Dabrowksi a

put: two processes can write different values in the same memory address of a third process • portability and performance predictability [36]. Nevertheless the majority of parallel programs written are not BSP programs. There are two main arguments against BSP. First the global synchronization barrier is claimed to be expensive. Second the BSP model is claimed to be too restrictive. All parallel algorithms are not fitted to its structured parallelism. Divide-and-conquer parallel algorithms are a class of algorithms which seem to be difficult to write using the BSP model and several models derived from the BSP model which allow subset synchronization have been proposed [16, 56]. Another approach is to offer a two tiered architecture [45]. We showed that divide-and-conquer algorithms can be written using extensions [41, 40] of our Bulk Synchronous Parallel ML language (BSML) [44, 39]. The execution of such programs even follow the pure BSP model. Anyway the BSP model and these extensions are efficient enough only under some conditions dependent on the BSP parameters and the problem. Thus we decided to investigate semantics of a new functional parallel language, without synchronization barriers, called Minimally Synchronous Parallel ML (MSPML). As a first phase we aimed at having (almost) the same source language and high level semantics (programming view) than BSML (in particular to be able to use with MSPML work done on type system [25] and proof of parallel BSML programs [24]), but with a different (and more efficient for unbalanced programs) low-level semantics and implementation. With this new language we would like to: • have a functional semantics and a deadlock free language but a simple cost model is no more mandatory ; • compare the efficiencies of BSML and MSPML as the comparisons of BSP and other parallel paradigms were done with classical imperative languages (C, Fortran) ; • investigate the expressiveness of MSPML for non BSPlike algorithms. MSPML will also be our framework to investigate extensions which are not suitable for BSML, such as the nesting of parallel values or which are not intuitive enough in BSML, such as spatial parallel composition.

International Journal of Computer & Information Science, Vol. 5, No. 3, September 2004

MSPML and BSML have been mixed to obtain a functional language [26] for departmental meta-computing. Several BSML programs are run on several parallel machines and are coordinated by a MSPML-like program. This paper is organized as follows. We first present the cost and execution model used for flat (without parallel composition) MSPML. Then we describe informally the main constructs of MSPML, first from the application programmer’s point of view (section 3) and then from the implementor’s point of view (section 4). Formal semantics of MSPML are given in section 5. Section 6 presents some experiments done on a cluster of PC with a small application which uses the Diffusion algorithmic skeleton. Section 7 is devoted to related work. We end with conclusions and future work (section 8). 2. Cost and Execution Model The Bulk Synchronous Parallel model [61, 46, 57, 8] represents a parallel computation on a parallel machine with p processors, a communication network and synchronization unit, as a sequence of super-steps (Figure 1) consisting of an alternate of computation phases (p asynchronous computations) and communications phases (data exchanges between processors) with global synchronization. The BSP cost model estimates execution times by a simple formula. A computation super-step takes as long as its longest sequential process, a global synchronization takes a fixed, systemdependent time L and a communication super-step is completed in time proportional to the arity h of the data exchange: the maximal number of words sent or received by a processor during that super-step. The system-dependent constant g, measured in time/word, is multiplied by h to obtain the estimated communication time. It is useful to measure times in multiples of a Flop so as to normalize g and L w.r.t. the sequential speed of processor nodes.

P0

P1

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. . . P(p-1)

a

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synchronization barrier

Figure 1. A BSP Super-step

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2.1 BSPWB: BSP Without Barrier BSPWB, for BSP Without Barrier [53], is a model directly inspired by the BSP model. It proposes to replace the notion of super-step by the notion of m-step defined as: at each mstep, each process performs a sequential computation phase then a communication phase. During this communication phase the processes exchange the data they need for the next m-step. The parallel machine in this model is characterized by three parameters (expressed as multiples of the processors speed): • the number of processes p, • the latency L of the network, • the time g which is taken to one word to be exchanged between two processes. The time needed for a process i to execute a m-step s, is ts,i bounded by Ts the time needed for the execution of the m-step s by the parallel machine. Ts is defined inductively by: ( T1 = max{w1,i } + max{g × h1,i + L} Ts = Ts−1 + max{ws,i } + max{g × hs,i + L} where i ∈ {0, . . . , p − 1} and s ∈ {2, . . . , R} where R is the number of m-steps of the program and ws,i and hs,i respectively denote the local computation time at process i during − + − m-step s and max{h+ s,i , hs,i } where hs,i (resp. hs,i ) is the number of words sent (resp. received) by process i during mstep s. This model could be applied but it will be not accurate enough because the bounds are too coarse. 2.2 MPM: Message Passing Model A better bound Φs,i is given by the Message Passing Machine (MPM) model [52]. The parameters of the Message Passing Machine are the same than those of the BSPWB model. The model uses the set Ωs,i for a process i and a m-step (Figure 2) s defined as:  [ j/process j sends a message Ωs,i = {i} to process i at m-step s

Processes included in Ωs,i are called “incoming partners” of process i at m-step s. Φs,i is inductively defined as: ( Φ1,i = max{w1,j /j ∈ Ω1,i } + (g × h1,i + L) Φs,i = max{Φs−1,j +ws−1,j |j ∈ Ωs,i }+(g×hs,i +L)

− where hs,i = max{h+ s,i , hs,i } for i ∈ {0, . . . , p − 1} and s ∈ {2, . . . , R}. Execution time for a program is thus bounded by: Ψ = max{ΦR,j /j ∈ {0, 1, . . . , p − 1}}. The MPM model takes into account that a process only synchronizes with each of its incoming partners and is therefore more accurate. The preliminary experiments (section 6) done with our implementation showed that the model applies well to MSPML.

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an awser phase of communication phase of local computing

Figure 2. The MPM m-step

3. Minimally Synchronous Parallel ML There is no implementation of a full Minimally Synchronous Parallel ML (MSPML) language but rather a partial implementation as a library for the functional programming language Objective Caml [51, 14, 38]. A MSPML program can be seen as an usual sequential program which manipulates a parallel data structure (called parallel vector). This is very different from SPMD programming (Single Program Multiple Data) where the programmer must use a sequential language and a communication library (like MPI [58]). A parallel program is then the multiple copies of a sequential program, which exchange messages using the communication library. In this case, messages and processes are explicit, but programs may be non deterministic or may contain deadlocks. Another drawback of SPMD programming is the use of a variable containing the process name (usually called “pid” for Process Identifier) which is bound outside the source program. A SPMD program is written using this variable. When it is executed, if the parallel machine contains p processes, p copies of the program are executed on each process with the pid variable bound to the number of the process on which it is run. Thus parts of the program that are specific to each process are those which depend on the pid variable. On the contrary, parts of the program which make global decision about the algorithms are those which do not depend on the pid variable. This dynamic and undecidable property is given the role of defining the most elementary aspect of a parallel program, namely, its local vs global parts. 3.1 The Core Library The so-called MSPML library is based on the elements given in figure 3. It gives access to the parameters of the underling architecture which is considered as a Message Passing Machine (MPM). In particular, it offers the function p such that the value of p() is p, the static number of processes of the parallel machine. The value of this variable does not change during execution. There is also an abstract polymorphic type α par which represents the type of p-wide parallel vectors of objects of type α , one per process. The nesting of par types is prohibited. This can be ensured by a type system [25].

The parallel constructs of MSPML operate on parallel vectors. Those parallel vectors are created by mkpar, so that (mkpar f) stores (f i) on process i for i between 0 and (p−1). We usually write fun pid → e for f to show that the expression e may be different on each process. This expression e is said to be local: it is inside a mkpar function and its value depends on the location (process) it is. The expression (mkpar f) is a parallel object and it is said to be global. For example the expression mkpar(fun pid → pid) will be evaluated to the parallel vector h 0 , . . . , p − 1 i. In the MPM model, an algorithm is expressed as a combination of asynchronous local computations and phases of communication. Asynchronous phases are programmed with mkpar and with apply. It is such as the expression apply (mkpar f) (mkpar e) stores (f i) (e i) on process i. The communication phases are expressed by get and mget. The semantics of get is given by: get hv0 , . . . , vp−1 i hi0 , . . . , ip−1 i = h v(i0 %p) , . . . , v(i(p−1) %p) i where % is modulo. The mget function is a generalization which allows to request data from several processes during the same mstep and to deliver different messages to different processes. In the type of mget in Figure 3, α option is defined by type α option = None | Some of α . Its semantics is: mget hf0 , . . . , fp−1 i hb0 , . . . , bp−1 i = hg0 , . . . , gp−1 i where gi = fun j → if (bi j) then Some (fj i) else None The full language would also contain a synchronous conditional: if e at n then e1 else e2 It evaluates to v1 (the value obtained by evaluating e1 ) or v2 (the value obtained by evaluating e2 ) depending on the value of the parallel vector of booleans e at process given by the integer n. But Objective Caml is an eager language and this synchronous conditional operation can not be defined as a function. That is why the core MSPML library contains the function at to be used in the constructions: • if (at e n) then . . . else . . . • match (at e n) with . . . at expresses communication phase. Global conditional is necessary to express algorithms like: Repeat Parallel Iteration Until Max of local errors <  Without it, the global control cannot take into account data computed locally. 3.2 Examples We will now present some examples which are part of the MSPML standard library and which are called in the Diffusion algorithmic skeleton program used for experiments in section 6.

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p: unit → int g: unit → float l: unit → float mkpar: (int → α ) → α par

apply: ( α → β ) par → α par → β par get: α par → int par → α par mget: (int → α ) par → (int → bool) par → (int → α option) par at: α par → int → α Figure 3. MSPML Core Library

3.2.1 Very Often Used Functions Some useful functions can be defined using only the primitives. For example the function replicate creates a parallel vector which contains the same value everywhere. The primitive apply can be used only for a parallel vector of functions which take only one argument. To deal with functions which take two arguments we need to define the apply2 function.

where   (∗val List.map: ( α → β ) → α list → β list ∗) List.map f [v0 ; . . . ; vn ] = [(f v0 ); . . . ; (f vn )]  procs() = [0;. . . ; p()-1]. The semantics of the broadcast is:

bcast hv0 , . . . , vp−1 i r = h vr%p , . . . , vr%p i

let replicate x = mkpar (fun pid → x) let apply2 vf v1 v2 = apply (apply vf v1) v2

The direct broadcast function which realizes the broadcast can be written as:

It is also very common to apply the same sequential function at each process. It can be done using the parfun functions: they differ only in the number of arguments of the function to apply:

(∗ bcast direct: int → α par → α par ∗) let bcast direct root vv = get vv (replicate root)

let parfun f v = apply (replicate f) v let parfun2 f v1 v2 = apply (parfun f v1) v2 let parfun3 f v1 v2 v3 = apply (parfun2 f v1 v2) v3 (applyat n f1 f2 v) applies function f1 at process n and function f2 at other processes: let applyat n f1 f2 v = apply (mkpar(fun i → if i=n then f1 else f2)) v parpair of pairpar transforms a parallel vector of pairs in a pair of parallel vectors: let fst (x,y) = x and snd (x,y) = y let parpair of pairpar vv = (parfun fst vv,parfun snd vv) 3.2.2 Communication Functions The semantics of the total exchange function is given by: totex hv0 , . . . , vp−1 i = h f , . . . , f , . . . , f i

Its parallel cost is (p − 1) × s × g + L, where s denotes the size of the value vn held at process n in words. The standard library of MSPML contains a collection of such functions which ease the writing of programs. In this respect, it is quite similar to write MSPML programs and to write programs using data-parallel skeletons. But with MSPML it is possible to write one’s own skeletons as higher order functions if the standard library does not provide the ones needed. Some of the standard library functions are recursive functions. For example, there exists a broadcast function which is evaluated in log p m-steps instead of 1 mstep: let bcast logp root vv = let from n = mkpar(fun i → let j=natmod (i+(p())−root) (p()) in if (n/2