Thanks Eugene!
My case, after simplified, is to speed up the time-consuming computation in the
loop below by assigning iterations to several nodes in a cluster by MPI. Each
iteration of the loop computes each element of an array. The computation of
each element is independent of others in the array.
int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
// some operations
f(size);
// some operations
return 0;
}
void f(int size)
{
// some operations
int i;
double * array = new double [size];
for (i = 0; i < size; i++) // need to speed up by MPI.
{
array[i] = complicated_computation(); // time consuming
}
// some operations using all elements in array
delete [] array;
}
--- On Thu, 1/28/10, Eugene Loh <eugene....@sun.com> wrote:
> From: Eugene Loh <eugene....@sun.com>
> Subject: Re: [OMPI users] speed up this problem by MPI
> To: "Open MPI Users" <us...@open-mpi.org>
> Date: Thursday, January 28, 2010, 8:31 PM
> Tim wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Eugene.
> >
> > I admit I am not that smart to understand well how to
> use MPI, but I did read some basic materials about it and
> understand how some simple problems are solved by MPI.
> > But dealing with an array in my case, I am not certain
> about how to apply MPI to it. Are you saying to use send and
> recieve to transfer the value computed for each element from
> child process to parent process?
> >
> You can, but typically that would entail too much
> communication overhead for each element.
>
> > Do you allocate a copy of the array for each process?
> >
> You can, but typically that would entail excessive memory
> consumption.
>
> Typically, one allocates only a portion of the array on
> each process. E.g., if the array has 10,000 elements
> and you have four processes, the first gets the first 2,500
> elements, the second the next 2,500, and so on.
>
> > Also I only need the loop that computes every element
> of the array to be parallelized.
> >
> If you only need the initial computation of array elements
> to be parallelized, perhaps any of the above strategies
> could work. It depends on how expensive the
> computation of each element is.
>
> > Someone said that the parallel part begins with
> MPI_Init and ends with MPI_Finilize,
> >
> Well, usually all processes are launched in parallel.
> So, the parallel begins "immediately." Inter-process
> communications using MPI, however, must take place between
> the MPI_Init and MPI_Finalize calls.
>
> > and one can do any serial computations before and/or
> after these calls. But I have wrote some MPI programs, and
> found that the parallel part is not restricted between
> MPI_Init and MPI_Finilize, but instead the whole program. If
> the rest part of the code has to be wrapped for process with
> ID 0, I have little idea about how to apply that to my case
> since the rest part would be the parts before and after the
> loop in the function and the whole in main().
> >
> I don't understand your case very clearly. I will
> take a guess. You could have all processes start and
> call MPI_Init. Then, slave processes can go to sleep,
> waking occasionally to check if the master has sent a signal
> to begin computation. The master does what it has to
> do and then sends wake signals. Each slave computes
> its portion and sends that portion back to the master.
> Each slave exits. The master gathers all the pieces
> and resumes its computation. Does that sound right?
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