[Link].

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S. DI GIROLAMO [DIGIROLS@[Link]]
MPI Tutorial – Part 1
Design of Parallel and High-Performance Computing – Recitation Session

Slides credits: Pavan Balaji, Torsten Hoefler

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Basic Info
 First DPHPC lecture: 09/25

 Assignments
 are an important part of the course.
 You will not learn this material from listening to a lecture alone -- you have to do the assignments.
 They are not graded, but feedbacks are provided if handend-in

 Course webpage: [Link]

 Course mailing-list: [Link]

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The switch from sequential to parallel computing

 Moore’s law continues to be true, but…
– Processor speeds no longer double every 18-24 months
– Number of processing units double, instead
• Multi-core chips (dual-core, quad-core)
– No more automatic increase in speed for software
 Parallelism is the norm
– Lots of processors connected over a network and coordinating to
solve large problems
– Used every where!
• By USPS for tracking and minimizing fuel routes
• By automobile companies for car crash simulations
• By airline industry to build newer models of flights

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Sample Parallel Programming Models

 Shared Memory Programming

– Processes share memory address space (threads model)
– Application ensures no data corruption (Lock/Unlock)
 Transparent Parallelization
– Compiler works magic on sequential programs
 Directive-based Parallelization
– Compiler needs help (e.g., OpenMP)
 Message Passing
– Explicit communication between processes (like sending and receiving
emails)

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The Message-Passing Model

 A process is (traditionally) a program counter and address space.

 Processes may have multiple threads (program counters and associated stacks) sharing a
single address space. MPI is for communication among processes, which have separate
address spaces.
 Inter-process communication consists of
– synchronization
– movement of data from one process’s address space to another’s.

MPI

Process Process
MPI

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The Message-Passing Model (an example)

 Each process has to send/receive data to/from other processes
 Example: Sorting Integers

Process1
O(N log N) 8 23 19 67 45 35 1 24 13 30 3 5

Process1 Process2

8 19 23 35 45 67 1 3 5 13 24 30
O(N/2 log N/2) O(N/2 log N/2)

1 3 5 8 13 19 23 24 30 35 45 67 O(N)

Process1

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Standardizing Message-Passing Models with MPI

 Early vendor systems (Intel’s NX, IBM’s EUI, TMC’s CMMD) were
not portable (or very capable)
 Early portable systems (PVM, p4, TCGMSG, Chameleon) were mainly research efforts
– Did not address the full spectrum of message-passing issues
– Lacked vendor support
– Were not implemented at the most efficient level
 The MPI Forum was a collection of vendors, portability writersand
users that wanted to standardize all these efforts

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What is MPI?
 MPI: Message Passing Interface
– The MPI Forum organized in 1992 with broad participation by:
• Vendors: IBM, Intel, TMC, SGI, Convex, Meiko
• Portability library writers: PVM, p4
• Users: application scientists and library writers
• MPI-1 finished in 18 months
– Incorporates the best ideas in a “standard” way
• Each function takes fixed arguments
• Each function has fixed semantics
– Standardizes what the MPI implementation provides and what the application can and cannot expect
– Each system can implement it differently as long as the semantics match
 MPI is not…
– a language or compiler specification
– a specific implementation or product
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Reasons for Using MPI

 Standardization - MPI is the only message passing library which can be considered a standard. It is
supported on virtually all HPC platforms. Practically, it has replaced all previous message passing
libraries
Important
Portability -Note:
There is no need to modify your source code when you port your application to a different
platform that supports (and is compliant with) the MPI standard
All parallelism is explicit: the programmer is responsible for correctly identifying parallelism
 Performance Opportunities - Vendor implementations should be able to exploit native hardware features
and implementing parallel algorithms using MPI constructs
to optimize performance
 Functionality – Rich set of features
 Availability - A variety of implementations are available, both vendor and public domain
– MPICH/Open MPI are popular open-source and free implementations of MPI
– Vendors and other collaborators take MPICH and add support for their systems
• Intel MPI, IBM Blue Gene MPI, Cray MPI, Microsoft MPI, MVAPICH, MPICH-MX

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MPI Basic Send/Receive

 Simple communication model

Process 0 Process 1
Send(data)
Receive(data)

 Application needs to specify to the MPI implementation:

1. How do you compile and run an MPI application?
2. How will processes be identified?
3. How will “data” be described?

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Compiling and Running MPI applications (more details later)

 MPI is a library
– Applications can be written in C, C++ or Fortran and appropriate calls to MPI can be added where
required
 Compilation:
– Regular applications:
• gcc test.c -o test
– MPI applications
• mpicc test.c -o test
 Execution:
– Regular applications
• ./test
– MPI applications (running with 16 processes)
• mpiexec –np 16 ./test

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Process Identification

 MPI processes can be collected into groups

 Each group can have multiple colors (some times called context)
 Group + color == communicator (it is like a name for the group)
 When an MPI application starts, the group of all processes is initially given a predefined name called
MPI_COMM_WORLD
 The same group can have many names, but simple programs do not have to worry about multiple
names
 A process is identified by a unique number within each communicator, called rank
 For two different communicators, the same process can have two different ranks: so the
meaning of a “rank” is only defined when you specify the communicator

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Communicators
mpiexec -np 16 ./test

Communicators do not
need to contain all 0 01 12 3
processes in the system When you start an MPI
program, there is one
04 215 326 37 predefined communicator
MPI_COMM_WORLD

Every process in a 48 459 56

10 7
11
communicator has an ID Can make copies of this
called as “rank” communicator (same group of
12 6
13 7
14 15 processes, but different
“aliases”)

The same process might have different

ranks in different communicators

Communicators can be created “by hand” or using tools provided by MPI (not discussed in this tutorial)
Simple programs typically only use the predefined communicator MPI_COMM_WORLD
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Simple MPI Program Identifying Processes

#include <mpi.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char ** argv) Basic

{ requirements
int rank, size; for an MPI
program
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);

MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &size);
printf("I am %d of %d\n", rank, size);

MPI_Finalize();
return 0;
}
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Data Communication
 Data communication in MPI is like email exchange
– One process sends a copy of the data to another process (or a group of processes), and the other process
receives it
 Communication requires the following information:
– Sender has to know:
• Whom to send the data to (receiver’s process rank)
• What kind of data to send (100 integers or 200 characters, etc)
• A user-defined “tag” for the message (think of it as an email subject; allows the receiver to understand what
type of data is being received)
– Receiver “might” have to know:
• Who is sending the data (OK if the receiver does not know; in this case sender rank will be MPI_ANY_SOURCE,
meaning anyone can send)
• What kind of data is being received (partial information is OK: I might receive up to 1000 integers)
• What the user-defined “tag” of the message is (OK if the receiver does not know; in this case tag will be
MPI_ANY_TAG)
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More Details on Using Ranks for Communication

 When sending data, the sender has to specify the destination
process’ rank
– Tells where the message should go
 The receiver has to specify the source process’ rank
– Tells where the message will come from
 MPI_ANY_SOURCE is a special “wild-card” source that can be
used by the receiver to match any source

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More Details on Describing Data for Communication

 MPI Datatype is very similar to a C or Fortran datatype

– int  MPI_INT
– double  MPI_DOUBLE
– char  MPI_CHAR
 More complex datatypes are also possible:
– E.g., you can create a structure datatype that comprises of other datatypes  a char, an int and a
double.
– Or, a vector datatype for the columns of a matrix
 The “count” in MPI_SEND and MPI_RECV refers to how many datatype elements should
be communicated

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More Details on User “Tags” for Communication

 Messages are sent with an accompanying user-defined integer tag, to assist the
receiving process in identifying the message
 For example, if an application is expecting two types of messages from a peer, tags
can help distinguish these two types
 Messages can be screened at the receiving end by specifying a specific tag
 MPI_ANY_TAG is a special “wild-card” tag that can be used by the receiver to match any
tag

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MPI Basic (Blocking) Send

MPI_SEND(buf, count, datatype, dest, tag, comm)

 The message buffer is described by (buf, count, datatype).

 The target process is specified by dest and comm.
– dest is the rank of the target process in the communicator specified by comm.
 tag is a user-defined “type” for the message

 When this function returns, the data has been delivered to the system and the buffer can
be reused.
– The message may not have been received by the target process.

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MPI Send Modes

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MPI Basic (Blocking) Receive

MPI_RECV(buf, count, datatype, source, tag, comm, status)

 Waits until a matching (on source, tag, comm) message is received from the system, and
the buffer can be used.
 source is rank in communicator comm, or MPI_ANY_SOURCE.
 Receiving fewer than count occurrences of datatype is OK, but receiving more is an
error.
 status contains further information:
– Who sent the message (can be used if you used MPI_ANY_SOURCE)
– How much data was actually received
– What tag was used with the message (can be used if you used MPI_ANY_TAG)
– MPI_STATUS_IGNORE can be used if we don’t need any additional information
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Simple Communication in MPI

#include <mpi.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char ** argv)

{
int rank, data[100];

MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);

MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);

if (rank == 0)
MPI_Send(data, 100, MPI_INT, 1, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
else if (rank == 1)
MPI_Recv(data, 100, MPI_INT, 0, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD, MPI_STATUS_IGNORE);

MPI_Finalize();
return 0;
}
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Parallel Sort using MPI Send/Recv

Rank 0
8 23 19 67 45 35 1 24 13 30 3 5

Rank 0 O(N log N) Rank 1

8 19 23 35 45 67 1 3 5 13 24 30

Rank 0

8 19 23 35 45 67 1 3 5 13 24 30

Rank 0

1 3 5 8 13 19 23 24 30 35 45 67

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Parallel Sort using MPI Send/Recv (contd.)

#include <mpi.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
int rank;
int a[1000], b[500];

MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);
if (rank == 0) {
MPI_Send(&a[500], 500, MPI_INT, 1, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
sort(a, 500);
MPI_Recv(b, 500, MPI_INT, 1, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);

/* Serial: Merge array b and sorted part of array a */

}
else if (rank == 1) {
MPI_Recv(b, 500, MPI_INT, 0, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
sort(b, 500);
MPI_Send(b, 500, MPI_INT, 0, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}

MPI_Finalize(); return 0;
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Status Object
 The status object is used after completion of a receive to findthe actual length, source, and tag of
a message
 Status object is MPI-defined type and provides information about:
– The source process for the message (status.MPI_SOURCE)
– The message tag (status.MPI_TAG)
– Error status (status.MPI_ERROR)
 The number of elements received is given by:

MPI_Get_count(MPI_Status *status, MPI_Datatype datatype, int *count)

status return status of receive operation (status)

datatype datatype of each receive buffer element (handle)
count number of received elements (integer)(OUT)

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Using the “status” field

Task 1 Task 2

 Each “worker process” computes some task (maximum 100 elements) and sends it to the
“master” process together with its group number: the “tag” field can be used to represent
the task
– Data count is not fixed (maximum 100 elements)
– Order in which workers send output to master is not fixed (different workers = different src ranks, and
different tasks = different tags)

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Using the “status” field (contd.)

#include <mpi.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char ** argv)

{
[...snip...]

if (rank != 0)
MPI_Send(data, rand() % 100, MPI_INT, 0, group_id, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
else {
for (i = 0; i < size – 1 ; i++) {
MPI_Recv(data, 100, MPI_INT, MPI_ANY_SOURCE, MPI_ANY_TAG, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
MPI_Get_count(&status, MPI_INT, &count);
printf(“worker ID: %d; task ID: %d; count: %d\n”, [Link], [Link], count);
}
}

[...snip...]
}

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MPI is Simple

 Many parallel programs can be written using just these six functions, only two of which are non-trivial:
– MPI_INIT – initialize the MPI library (must be the
first routine called)
– MPI_COMM_SIZE - get the size of a communicator
– MPI_COMM_RANK – get the rank of the calling process
in the communicator
– MPI_SEND – send a message to another process
– MPI_RECV – send a message to another process
– MPI_FINALIZE – clean up all MPI state (must be the last MPI function
called by a process)
 For performance, however, you need to use other MPI features

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Getting Started with MPI

 Download your preferred MPI implementation. E.g.:
 MPICH: [Link] (current stable: 3.2)
 OpenMPI: [Link] (current stable: 3.0)
 Build (e.g., MPICH – pretty much the same for the others)
 tar -xzvf [Link]
 cd mpich-3.2
 ./configure –-prefix=/where/to/install/mpich
 make
 make install
 Add /where/to/install/mpich/bin to your PATH

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Compiling MPI programs with MPICH

 Compilation Wrappers
– For C programs: mpicc test.c –o test
– For C++ programs: mpicxx [Link] –o test
– For Fortran 77 programs: mpif77 test.f –o test
– For Fortran 90 programs: mpif90 test.f90 –o test
 You can link other libraries are required too
• – To link to a math library: mpicc
test.c –o test -lm
 You can just assume that “mpicc” and friends have replaced
• your regular compilers (gcc, gfortran, etc.)

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Running MPI programs with MPICH

 Launch 16 processes on the local node:

– mpiexec –np 16 ./test
 Launch 16 processes on 4 nodes (each has 4 cores)
– mpiexec –hosts h1:4,h2:4,h3:4,h4:4 –np 16 ./test
• Runs the first four processes on h1, the next four on h2, etc.
– mpiexec –hosts h1,h2,h3,h4 –np 16 ./test
• Runs the first process on h1, the second on h2, etc., and wraps around
• So, h1 will have the 1st, 5th, 9th and 13th processes
 If there are many nodes, it might be easier to create a host file
– cat hf
h1:4 h2:2
– mpiexec –hostfile hf –np 16 ./test

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Blocking vs. Non-blocking Communication

 MPI_SEND/MPI_RECV are blocking communication calls

– Return of the routine implies completion
– When these calls return the memory locations used in the message transfer can be safely accessed
for reuse
– For “send” completion implies variable sent can be reused/modified
– Modifications will not affect data intended for the receiver
– For “receive” variable received can be read

 MPI_ISEND/MPI_IRECV are non-blocking variants

– Routine returns immediately – completion has to be separately tested for
– These are primarily used to overlap computation and communication to improve performance

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Blocking Communication
 In blocking communication.
– MPI_SEND does not return until buffer is empty (available for reuse)
– MPI_RECV does not return until buffer is full (available for use)
 A process sending data will be blocked until data in the send buffer is emptied
 A process receiving data will be blocked until the receive buffer is filled
 Exact completion semantics of communication generally depends on the
message size and the system buffer size
 Blocking communication is simple to use but can be prone to deadlocks
If (rank == 0) Then
Call mpi_send(..)
Call mpi_recv(..)
Usually deadlocks  Else
Call mpi_send(..)  UNLESS you reverse send/recv
Call mpi_recv(..)
Endif
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Blocking Send-Receive Diagram

time

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Non-Blocking Communication

 Non-blocking (asynchronous) operations return (immediately) ‘‘request handles” that can be waited on and
queried
– MPI_ISEND(start, count, datatype, dest, tag, comm, request)
– MPI_IRECV(start, count, datatype, src, tag, comm, request)
– MPI_WAIT(request, status)
 Non-blocking operations allow overlapping computation and communication
 One can also test without waiting using MPI_TEST
– MPI_TEST(request, flag, status)
 Anywhere you use MPI_SEND or MPI_RECV, you can use the pair of
MPI_ISEND/MPI_WAIT or MPI_IRECV/MPI_WAIT
 Combinations of blocking and non-blocking sends/receives can be used to synchronize execution instead of
barriers

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Multiple Completions

 It is sometimes desirable to wait on multiple requests:

• MPI_Waitall(count, array_of_requests, array_of_statuses)

• MPI_Waitany(count, array_of_requests, &index, &status)

• MPI_Waitsome(count, array_of_requests, array_of_indices, array_of_statuses)

 There are corresponding versions of test for each of these

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Non-Blocking Send-Receive Diagram

time

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Message Completion and Buffering

 For a communication to succeed:
– Sender must specify a valid destination rank
– Receiver must specify a valid source rank (including MPI_ANY_SOURCE)
– The communicator must be the same
– Tags must match
– Receiver’s buffer must be large enough
 A send has completed when the user supplied buffer can be reused
*buf =3; *buf =3;
MPI_Send(buf, 1, MPI_INT …) MPI_Isend(buf, 1, MPI_INT …)
*buf = 4; /* OK, receiver will always *buf = 4; /*Not certain if receiver
receive 3 */ gets 3 or 4 or anything else */
MPI_Wait(…);

 Just because the send completes does not mean that the receive has completed
– Message may be buffered by the system
– Message may still be in transit

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A Non-Blocking communication example

int main(int argc, char ** argv)

{
[...snip...]
if (rank == 0) {
for (i=0; i< 100; i++) {
/* Compute each data element and send it out */ data[i] = compute(i);
MPI_ISend(&data[i], 1, MPI_INT, 1, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &request[i]);
}
MPI_Waitall(100, request, MPI_STATUSES_IGNORE)
}
else {
for (i = 0; i < 100; i++)
MPI_Recv(&data[i], 1, MPI_INT, 0, 0, MPI_COMM_WORLD, MPI_STATUS_IGNORE);
}
[...snip...]
}

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Introduction to Collective Operations in MPI

 Collective operations are called by all processes in a communicator.

 MPI_BCAST distributes data from one process (the root) to all others in a communicator.

 MPI_REDUCE combines data from all processes in the communicator and returns it to one
process.
 In many numerical algorithms, SEND/RECV can be replaced by BCAST/REDUCE, improving
both simplicity and efficiency.

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MPI Collective Communication

 Communication and computation is coordinated among a group of processes in a

communicator
 Tags are not used; different communicators deliver similar functionality
 Non-blocking collective operations in MPI-3
– Covered in the advanced tutorial (but conceptually simple)
 Three classes of operations: synchronization, data movement, collective computation

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Synchronization

 MPI_BARRIER(comm)
– Blocks until all processes in the group of the communicator comm call it
– A process cannot get out of the barrier until all other processes have reached barrier

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Collective Data Movement

int MPI_Bcast( void *buffer, int count, MPI_Datatype datatype, int root, MPI_Comm comm )

P0 A A
P1 Broadcast A
P2 A
P3 A

int MPI_Scatter(const void *sendbuf, int sendcount, MPI_Datatype sendtype, void *recvbuf, int recvcount,
MPI_Datatype recvtype, int root, MPI_Comm comm)

P0 A B C D Scatter A
P1
B
P2
C
Gather
P3
D
int MPI_Gather(const void *sendbuf, int sendcount, MPI_Datatype sendtype, void *recvbuf, int recvcount,
MPI_Datatype recvtype, int root, MPI_Comm comm)
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More Collective Data Movement

int MPI_Allgather(const void *sendbuf, int sendcount, MPI_Datatype sendtype, void *recvbuf, int recvcount,
MPI_Datatype recvtype, MPI_Comm comm)

P0 A A B C D
P1 B Allgather A B C D
P2 C A B C D
P3 D A B C D

int MPI_Alltoall(const void *sendbuf, int sendcount, MPI_Datatype sendtype, void *recvbuf, int recvcount,
MPI_Datatype recvtype, MPI_Comm comm)

P0 A0 A1 A2 A3 A0 B0 C0 D0
P1
B0 B1 B2 B3 Alltoall A1 B1 C1 D1
P2
C0 C1 C2 C3 A2 B2 C2 D2
P3
D0 D1 D2 D3 A3 B3 C3 D3

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Collective Computation
int MPI_Reduce(const void *sendbuf, void *recvbuf, int count, MPI_Datatype datatype, MPI_Op op, int root,
MPI_Comm comm)

P0 A A+B+C+D
P1 B Reduce
P2 C
P3 D

int MPI_Allreduce(const void *sendbuf, void *recvbuf, int count, MPI_Datatype datatype, MPI_Op op,
MPI_Comm comm)

P0 A A+B+C+D
P1 B AllReduce A+B+C+D
P2 C A+B+C+D
P3 D A+B+C+D

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int MPI_Scan(const void *sendbuf, void *recvbuf, int count, MPI_Datatype datatype, MPI_Op op,
MPI_Comm comm)

P0 A A
P1 B AB
Scan
P2 C ABC
P3 D ABCD

 MPI_ALLREDUCE, MPI_REDUCE, MPI_REDUCESCATTER, and MPI_SCAN take both built-in and user-
defined combiner functions

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MPI Built-in Collective Computation Operations

 MPI_MAX Maximum
 MPI_MIN Minimum
 MPI_PROD Product
 MPI_SUM Sum
 MPI_LAND Logical and
 MPI_LOR Logical or
 MPI_LXOR Logical exclusive or
 MPI_BAND Bitwise and
 MPI_BOR Bitwise or
 MPI_BXOR Bitwise exclusive or
 MPI_MAXLOC Maximum and location
 MPI_MINLOC Minimum and location

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Defining your own Collective Operations

 Create your own collective computations with:

MPI_OP_CREATE(user_fn, commutes, &op);
MPI_OP_FREE(&op);

user_fn(invec, inoutvec, len, datatype);

 The user function should perform:

inoutvec[i] = invec[i] op inoutvec[i];
for i from 0 to len-1

 The user function can be non-commutative, but must be associative

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Homework
 Find an iterative method to calculate Pi (if you cannot find one read
[Link]
 Write a sequential version in C
 Write a parallel version using MPI (based on seq. Code)

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