EDPEPPS: an integrated environment for the parallel development life-cycle

This paper describes an environment for performance-oriented design of port able parallel software. The environment consists of a graphical design tool for building parallel algorithms, a state-of-the-art simulation engine, a CPU characterisation tool, a distributed debugging tool and a visualisation /replay tool. The environment is used to model a virtual machine composed o f a cluster of heterogeneous workstations interconnected by a local area ne twork. The simulation model used is modular and its components are intercha ngeable which allows easy re-configuration of the platform. The model is va lidated using experiments on two parallel Givens linear solver algorithms w ith average errors of about 8%. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights r eserved.