Execution flow control: Simplified design of parallel applications

Abstract

Google's MapReduce enables program automatic parallelization by partitioning input data and replicating functions, but it does not directly support complex parallel modes like pipeline. However, many parallel modes are helpful to optimize solution of parallel computing problem. In this paper, we propose EFC (Execution Flow Control), a novel programming model and related implementation. It supports an execution-flow control interface which makes the model more compatible with different parallel modes. It allows user to modify execution flow as needed. The new model enables simple compact design of most parallel modes.