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Abstracts - 1997 ANNUAL TECHNICAL CONFERENCE

Adaptive and Reliable Parallel Computing
on Networks of Workstations

Robert D. Blumofe, University of Texas, and Philip A. Lisiecki, MIT

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design of Cilk-NOW, a runtime system that adaptively and reliably executes functional Cilk programs in parallel on a network of UNIX workstations. Cilk (pronounced "silk") is a parallel multithreaded extension of the C language, and all Cilk runtime systems employ a provably efficient thread-scheduling algorithm. Cilk-NOW is such a runtime system, and in addition, Cilk-NOW automatically delivers adaptive and reliable execution for a functional subset of Cilk programs. By adaptive execution, we mean that each Cilk program dynamically utilizes a changing set of otherwise-idle workstations. By reliable execution, we mean that the Cilk-NOW system as a whole and each executing Cilk program are able to tolerate machine and network faults. Cilk-NOW provides these features while programs remain fault oblivious, meaning that Cilk programmers need not code for fault tolerance. Throughout this paper, we focus on end-to-end design decisions, and we show how these decisions allow the design to exploit high-level algorithmic properties of the Cilk programming model in order to simplify and streamline the implementation.
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