We propose a new set of OS abstractions to support GPUs and other accelerator devices as first class computing resources. These new abstractions, collectively called the PTask API, support a dataflow programming model. Because a PTask graph consists of OS-managed objects, the kernel has sufficient visibility and control to provide system-wide guarantees like fairness and performance isolation, and can streamline data movement in ways that are impossible under current GPU programming models. Our experience developing the PTask API, along with a gestural interface on Windows 7 and a FUSE-based encrypted file system on Linux show that the PTask API can provide important system-wide guarantees where there were previously none, and can enable significant performance improvements, for example gaining a 5x improvement in maximum throughput for the gestural interface. © 2011 ACM.
CITATION STYLE
Rossbach, C. J., Currey, J., Silberstein, M., Ray, B., & Witchel, E. (2011). PTask: Operating system abstractions to manage GPUs as compute devices. In SOSP’11 - Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (pp. 233–248). https://doi.org/10.1145/2043556.2043579
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