Netfiles: An enhanced stream-based communication mechanism

Abstract

Netfiles is an alternative API for message passing on distributed memory machines. Based on the communication stream model, Netfiles provides enhanced functionality such as broadcasts and gather operations. Netfiles overload conventional file I/O primitives enabling parallel programs to be developed and tested on a file system before execution on a parallel machine. Netfiles is part of a parallel programming system called FAbrlC. This paper also presents the design and implementation of the FAbrlC architecture and demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by means of two parallel applications: a parallel shallow water model application and parallel Jacobi method. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008.