The Design of a Standard Message-Passing Interface for Distributed Memory Concurrent Computers

D. W. Walker
Mathematical Sciences Section
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
P. O. Box 2008
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6367
U. S. A.

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of MPI, a proposed standard message passing interface for MIMD distributed memory concurrent computers. The design of MPI has been a collective effort involving researchers in the United States and Europe from many organizations and institutions. MPI includes point-to-point and collective communication routines, as well as support for process groups, communication contexts, and application topologies. While making use of new ideas where appropriate, the MPI standard is based largely on current practice.

D. W. Walker, The Design of a Standard Message-Passing Interface for Distributed Memory Concurrent Computers, Parallel Computing, Vol. 20, No. 4, pages 657-673, April 1994.