A Model For Speedup of Parallel Programs

Allen B Downey

EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley

Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-97-933

1997

This publication is archived. It is kept only for reference purposes, so it is no longer being updated and may not meet accessibility standards. If you need this content in a different format, please email webteam@eecs.berkeley.edu.

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1997/Archive/CSD-97-933.pdf

We propose a new model for parallel speedup that is based on two parameters, the average parallelism of a program and its variance in parallelism. We present a way to use the model to estimate these program characteristics using only observed speedup curves (as opposed to the more detailed program knowledge otherwise required). We apply this method to speedup curves from real programs on a variety of architectures and show that the model fits the observed data well. We propose several applications for the model, including the selection of cluster sizes for parallel jobs.

BibTeX citation:

@techreport{Downey:CSD-97-933,
    Author= {Downey, Allen B},
    Title= {A Model For Speedup of Parallel Programs},
    Year= {1997},
    Month= {Jan},
    Url= {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1997/5394.html},
    Number= {UCB/CSD-97-933},
    Abstract= {We propose a new model for parallel speedup that is based on two parameters, the average parallelism of a program and its variance in parallelism. We present a way to use the model to estimate these program characteristics using only observed speedup curves (as opposed to the more detailed program knowledge otherwise required). We apply this method to speedup curves from real programs on a variety of architectures and show that the model fits the observed data well. We propose several applications for the model, including the selection of cluster sizes for parallel jobs.},
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Report
%A Downey, Allen B 
%T A Model For Speedup of Parallel Programs
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 1997
%@ UCB/CSD-97-933
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1997/5394.html
%F Downey:CSD-97-933