Service Oriented Programming in MPI

In this paper we introduce a service-oriented approach to the design of distributed data structures for MPI. Using this approach we present the design of an ordered linked-list structure. The implementation relies on Fine-Grain MPI (FG-MPI) and its support for exposing fine-grain concurrency. We describe the implementation of the service and show how to compose and map it onto a cluster. We experiment with the service to show how its behaviour can be adjusted to match the application and the underlying characteristics of the machine. The advantage of a service-oriented approach is that it enforces low coupling between components with higher cohesion inside components. As a service, the ordered linked-list structure can be easily composed with application code and more generally it is an illustration of how complex data structures can be added to message-passing libraries and languages.