Parallelizing a level 3 BLAS library for LAN-connected workstations

Abstract

LAN-connected workstations are a heterogeneous environment, where each workstation provides time-varying computing power, and thus dynamic load balancing mechanisms are necessary for parallel applications to run efficiently. Parallel basic linear algebra subprograms (BLAS) have recently shown promise as a means of taking advantage of parallel computing in solving scientific problems. Most existing parallel algorithms of BLAS are designed for conventional parallel computers; they do not take the particular characteristics of LAN-connected workstations into consideration. This paper presents a parallelizing method of Level 3 BLAS for LAN-connected workstations. The parallelizing method makes dynamic load balancing through column-blocking data distribution. The experiment results indicate that this dynamic load balancing mechanism really leads to a more efficient parallel level 3 BLAS for LAN-connected workstations. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.