A message-passing class library C++ for portable parallel programming

An object-oriented message-passing class library in C++, called PPI++, for portable parallel programming has been developed. PPI++ (parallel portability interface in C++) is designed to serve as a stable (unchanging) interface between the client parallel code and the rapidly evolving distributed computing environments. By taking advantage of encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism supported by C++, PPI++ provides a clean and consistent programming interface, which helps improve the clarity and expressiveness of client parallel codes and hides implementation details and complexity from the user to ease parallel programming tasks. In addition, the use of strong type-checking in C++ allows the detection of potential misuses of the library at compile time, and thus promotes code reliability. This paper describes the object-oriented design and implementation of PPI++. Evaluation of PPI++ on important performance issues, such as portability, ease-of-use, extensibility, and efficiency, is also discussed.