METRICS: a tool for the display and analysis of mappings in message-passing multicomputers

Abstract

METRICS is a software tool for the static (compile time) analysis of mappings. METRICS is designed for use in the mapping of parallel computations consisting of a set of communicating parallel processes which communicate through explicit message passing. The target architectures currently supported include the mesh and hypercube as well as user-defined topologies. The underlying routing schemes include store-and-forward, virtual cut-through, and wormhole routing. METRICS is designed to display the mapping in a clear, logical, and intuitive format so that the user can evaluate it quantitatively as well as visually. The contributions of METRICS include its rich underlying formalism, the temporal communication graph, a hybrid between the static task graph and the DAG; its mechanisms for handling massive parallelism using subviews, scrolling, and hierarchical grouping; and the broad spectrum of mapping metrics used in the analysis of each mapping.<>