MPI support on opportunistic grids based on the InteGrade middleware
The message passing interface (MPI) is a popular programming model for parallel applications. Support for MPI in grid middleware is important for the widespread use of grids for parallel programming. This enables existing parallel applications to be executed on large-scale grids, as opposed to being restricted to local clusters. In the specific case of opportunistic grids, the use of idle computing power from non-dedicated computers further adds to the range of resources that can be used. In this paper we present MPICH-IG, an implementation of the MPI-2 standard on top of the InteGrade grid middleware. Existing MPI applications can run unmodified, while taking advantage of the InteGrade scheduler to harvest the available computing power from the grid. In addition, fault-tolerance of MPI applications is achieved through a checkpointing mechanism, which allows applications to be resumed after failures of particular grid nodes. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
opportunistic grids parallel applications grid computing message-passing interface