A taxonomy of task-based technologies for high-performance computing

Abstract

Task-based programming models for shared memory – such as Cilk Plus and OpenMP 3 – are well established and documented. However, with the increase in heterogeneous, many-core and parallel systems, a number of research-driven projects have developed more diversified task-based support, employing various programming and runtime features. Unfortunately, despite the fact that dozens of different task-based systems exist today and are actively used for parallel and high-performance computing, no comprehensive overview or classification of task-based technologies for HPC exists. In this paper, we provide an initial task-focused taxonomy for HPC technologies, which covers both programming interfaces and runtime mechanisms. We demonstrate the usefulness of our taxonomy by classifying state-of-the-art task-based environments in use today.