Dynamic task migration from SIMD to SPMD virtual machines

• Published in: Proceedings of First IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems. ICECCS'95 pp. 326 - 333
• Main Authors: Armstrong, J.B., Siegel, H.J.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE Comput. Soc. Press 1995
• Subjects: Computer languages; Contracts; Fault tolerance; Laboratories; Load management; NASA; Parallel machines; Parallel processing; Shape; Virtual machining
• ISBN: 0818671238; 9780818671234
• DOI: 10.1109/ICECCS.1995.479353

A method to migrate a task dynamically from a virtual SIMD machine to a virtual SPMD machine is proposed. It is assumed that the SIMD and SPMD virtual machine models only differ to support the different modes of parallelism, and that the program was coded in a mode-independent programming language. The difficulty of performing an SIMD to SPMD migration arises from the fact that some SIMD PEs may be disabled at the point in the program at which the migration occurs. Furthermore, each of the disabled PEs may need to be re-enabled at different points in the SPMD program. The compiler information that should be furnished to the task migration procedure is given. The time and memory space complexities of the task migration procedure are also presented. The work solves part of the general problem of task migration in SIMD/SPMD mixed-machine heterogeneous systems.