Performance of message-passing MATLAB toolboxes

Abstract

In this work we compare some of the freely available parallel Toolboxes for MATLAB, which differ in purpose and implementation details: while DP-Toolbox and MultiMATLAB offer a higher-level parallel environment, the goals of PVMTB and MPITB, developed by us [7], are to closely adhere to the PVM system and MPI standard, respectively. DP-Toolbox is also based on PVM, and MultiMATLAB on MPI. These Toolboxes allow the user to build a parallel application under the rapid-prototyping MATLAB environment. The differences between them are illustrated by means of a performance test and a simple case study frequently found in the literature. Thus, depending on the preferred message-passing software and the performance requirements of the application, the user can either choose a higher-level Toolbox and benefit from easier coding, or directly interface the message-passing routines and benefit from greater control and performance. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.