MMK - a distributed operating system kernel with integrated dynamic loadbalancing

Abstract

The paper presents an operating system kernel for highly parallel supercomputers, which was implemented on an iPSC/2 Hypercube with 32 processors. The kernel offers a process model, which is well suited for most partitioning strategies of parallel algorithms. The base for the efficiency of this object oriented, global, and dynamic programming concept are advances in communication network technologies (virtual fully connection) of some new parallel supercomputers. After presenting the functionality and the implementation of MMK (Multiprocessor Multitasking Kernel), the paper reports on an improved programming methodology based on a combination of data and task partitioning which leads to efficient computations on virtual fully connected highly parallel machines. MMK is an integral part of the TOPSYS-project (TOols for Parallel SYStems) and all tools support the MMK programming model.