Case Studies of Software Development Tools for Parallel Architectures

Abstract : The Parallel Evaluation and Experimentation Platform (PEEP) is the result of an effort at Rome Laboratory to identify the most promising general- purpose software development tools, techniques and approaches from industry and academia for programming high performance parallel computers to meet the needs of Command and Control (C2) applications. The PEEP is a prototype platform for evaluating the applicability of results from parallel programming research efforts to improve the productivity of designers and developers. Intermetrics conducted a study of available innovative tools and techniques beginning in early 1990. From the survey, Intermetrics chose candidates for inclusion on a prototype platform, and began to install and evaluate the chosen components. With the prototype PEEP, a number of case studies were conducted to develop small parallel programs using the selected tools. The purpose of these case studies was not to advance the state of the art in parallel algorithms, but to exercise the tools collected for the prototype PEEP. This work identified requirements on architectures, life cycle activities and technologies to support parallel development and developed a long range plan for the PEEP. The conclusions from these case studies also suggest useful methodologies for developing parallel software, and have led to recommendations based on the performance of the current tools and on the projected needs of parallel software development.