A generic parallel pattern interface for stream and data processing

Abstract

SummaryCurrent parallel programming frameworks aid developers to a great extent in implementing applications that exploit parallel hardware resources. Nevertheless, developers require additional expertise to properly use and tune them to operate efficiently on specific parallel platforms. On the other hand, porting applications between different parallel programming models and platforms is not straightforward and demands considerable efforts and specific knowledge. Apart from that, the lack of high‐level parallel pattern abstractions, in those frameworks, further increases the complexity in developing parallel applications. To pave the way in this direction, this paper proposes GRPPI, a generic and reusable parallel pattern interface for both stream processing and data‐intensive C++ applications. GRPPI accommodates a layer between developers and existing parallel programming frameworks targeting multi‐core processors, such as C++ threads, OpenMP and Intel TBB, and accelerators, as CUDA Thrust. Furthermore, thanks to its high‐level C++ application programming interface and pattern composability features, GRPPI allows users to easily expose parallelism via standalone patterns or patterns compositions matching in sequential applications. We evaluate this interface using an image processing use case and demonstrate its benefits from the usability, flexibility, and performance points of view. Furthermore, we analyze the impact of using stream and data pattern compositions on CPUs, GPUs and heterogeneous configurations.