Parallel disk-based computation for large, monolithic binary decision diagrams

Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) are widely used in formal verification. They are also widely known for consuming large amounts of memory. For larger problems, a BDD computation will often start thrashing due to lack of memory within minutes. This work uses the parallel disks of a cluster or a SAN (storage area network) as an extension of RAM, in order to efficiently compute with BDDs that are orders of magnitude larger than what is available on a typical computer. The use of parallel disks overcomes the bandwidth problem of single disk methods, since the bandwidth of 50 disks is similar to the bandwidth of a single RAM subsystem. In order to overcome the latency issues of disk, the Roomy library is used for the sake of its latency-tolerant data structures. A breadth-first algorithm is implemented. A further advantage of the algorithm is that RAM usage can be very modest, since its largest use is as buffers for open files. The success of the method is demonstrated by solving the 16-que...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: CAP
• Authors: Daniel Kunkle, Vlad Slavici, Gene Cooperman
• Keywords: CAP 2010, Distributed And Parallel Computing, Parallel Disks, Single Disk Methods, Single Ram Subsystem