Newsgroups: comp.parallel
From: tseng@cs.stanford.edu (Chau-Wen Tseng)
Subject: Re: "owner computes" references?
Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 14:12:09 GMT
Message-ID: <3h8jcj$b5q@larry.rice.edu>


> Can anyone give me any references on the "owner computes" model?

The "owner computes" model describes a heuristic used by compilers
divide work across processors based on the data partition.  It is
described in three early papers:

  D. Callahan and K. Kennedy, "Compiling Programs for Distributed-Memory
  Multiprocessors," Journal of Supercomputing, vol. 2, pp. 151-169,
  October 1988.

  H. Zima, H.-J. Bast and M. Gerndt, "SUPERB: A Tool For Semi-automatic
  MIMD/SIMD Parallelization," Parallel Computing, vol. 6, pp. 1-18, 1988.

  A. Rogers and K. Pingali, "Process Decomposition Through Locality
  of Reference," Proceedings of the SIGPLAN '89 Conference on Programming
  Language Design and Implementation, June 1989.

As far as I know, Prof. Ken Kennedy at Rice University first used the term
"owner computes" to describe this approach.  For a detailed definition,
see the following paper:

  S. Hiranandani, K. Kennedy and C.-W. Tseng, "Compiling Fortran D for
  MIMD Distributed-Memory Machines," Communications of the ACM,
  35(8):66-80, August 1992.

Various groups have proposed alternatives to the owner-computes rule.
For an example, see:

  S. Amarasinghe and M. Lam, "Communication Optimization and Code Generation
  for Distributed Memory Machines," Proceedings of the SIGPLAN '93 Conference
  on Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993.

Since these compilation systems all produce SPMD message-passing programs,
their output can be easily converted to run on distributed systems such
as a network of workstations.  Two software vendors with HPF compilers
are Applied Parallel Research (APR) and Portland Group, Inc (PGI); I
believe they also adhere to the owner-computes rule for their compilers.

Hope this helps,

Chau-Wen Tseng
Computer Systems Lab
Stanford University


