Computation Migration: Enhancing Locality for Distributed-Memory Parallel Systems

Abstract

We describe computation migration, a new technique that is based on compile-time program transformations, for accesing remote data in a distributed-memory parallel system. In contrast with RPC-style access, where the access is performed remotely, and with data migration, where the data is moved so that it is local, computation migration moves part of the current thread to the processor where the data resides. The access is performed at the remote processor, and the migrated thread portion continues to run on that same processor; this makes subsequent accesses in the thread portion local.