PMI: A Scalable Parallel Process-Management Interface for Extreme-Scale Systems

Parallel programming models on large-scale systems require a scalable system for managing the processes that make up the execution of a parallel program. The process-management system must be able to launch millions of processes quickly when starting a parallel program and must provide mechanisms for the processes to exchange the information needed to enable them communicate with each other. MPICH2 and its derivatives achieve this functionality through a carefully defined interface, called PMI, that allows different process managers to interact with the MPI library in a standardized way. In this paper, we describe the features and capabilities of PMI. We describe both PMI-1, the current generation of PMI used in MPICH2 and all its derivatives, as well as PMI-2, the second-generation of PMI that eliminates various short

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: PVM
• Authors: Pavan Balaji, Darius Buntinas, David Goodell, William Gropp, Jayesh Krishna, Ewing L. Lusk, Rajeev Thakur
• Keywords: Distributed And Parallel Computing, Different Process Managers, Parallel Program, Parallel Programming Models, PVM 2010