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  25 <div class="chapter">
  26 <div class="titlepage"><div>
  27 <div><h2 class="title">
  28 <a name="mpi"></a>Chapter&#160;20.&#160;Boost.MPI</h2></div>
  29 <div><div class="author"><h3 class="author">
  30 <span class="firstname">Douglas</span> <span class="surname">Gregor</span>
  31 </h3></div></div>
  32 <div><div class="author"><h3 class="author">
  33 <span class="firstname">Matthias</span> <span class="surname">Troyer</span>
  34 </h3></div></div>
  35 <div><p class="copyright">Copyright &#169; 2005-2007 Douglas Gregor,
  36       Matthias Troyer, Trustees of Indiana University</p></div>
  37 <div><div class="legalnotice">
  38 <a name="mpi.legal"></a><p>
  39         Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
  40         file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">
  41         http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt </a>)
  42       </p>
  43 </div></div>
  44 </div></div>
  45 <div class="toc">
  46 <p><b>Table of Contents</b></p>
  47 <dl class="toc">
  48 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi.html#mpi.intro">Introduction</a></span></dt>
  49 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/getting_started.html">Getting started</a></span></dt>
  50 <dd><dl>
  51 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/getting_started.html#mpi.mpi_impl">MPI Implementation</a></span></dt>
  52 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/getting_started.html#mpi.config">Configure and Build</a></span></dt>
  53 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/getting_started.html#mpi.installation">Installing and Using Boost.MPI</a></span></dt>
  54 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/getting_started.html#mpi.testing">Testing Boost.MPI</a></span></dt>
  55 </dl></dd>
  56 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/tutorial.html">Tutorial</a></span></dt>
  57 <dd><dl>
  58 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/tutorial.html#mpi.point_to_point">Point-to-Point communication</a></span></dt>
  59 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/tutorial.html#mpi.collectives">Collective operations</a></span></dt>
  60 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/tutorial.html#mpi.communicators">Managing communicators</a></span></dt>
  61 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/tutorial.html#mpi.skeleton_and_content">Separating structure from content</a></span></dt>
  62 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/tutorial.html#mpi.performance_optimizations">Performance optimizations</a></span></dt>
  63 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/tutorial.html#mpi.c_mapping">Mapping from C MPI to Boost.MPI</a></span></dt>
  64 </dl></dd>
  65 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html">Reference</a></span></dt>
  66 <dd><dl>
  67 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  68 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.allocator_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/allocator.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  69 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.collectives_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/collectives.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  70 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.collectives_fwd_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/collectives_fwd.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  71 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.communicator_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/communicator.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  72 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.config_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/config.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  73 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.datatype_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/datatype.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  74 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.datatype_fwd_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/datatype_fwd.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  75 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.environment_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/environment.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  76 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.exception_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/exception.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  77 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.graph_communicator_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/graph_communicator.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  78 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.group_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/group.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  79 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.inplace_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/inplace.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  80 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.intercommunicator_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/intercommunicator.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  81 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.nonblocking_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/nonblocking.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  82 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.operations_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/operations.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  83 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.packed_iarchive_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/packed_iarchive.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  84 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.packed_oarchive_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/packed_oarchive.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  85 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.python_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/python.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  86 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.request_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/request.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  87 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.skeleton_and_content_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/skeleton_and_content.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  88 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.skeleton_and_content_fwd_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/skeleton_and_content_fwd.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  89 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.status_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/status.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  90 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/reference.html#header.boost.mpi.timer_hpp">Header &lt;boost/mpi/timer.hpp&gt;</a></span></dt>
  91 </dl></dd>
  92 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html">Python Bindings</a></span></dt>
  93 <dd><dl>
  94 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.python_quickstart">Quickstart</a></span></dt>
  95 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.python_user_data">Transmitting User-Defined Data</a></span></dt>
  96 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.python_collectives">Collectives</a></span></dt>
  97 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.python_skeleton_content">Skeleton/Content Mechanism</a></span></dt>
  98 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.design">Design Philosophy</a></span></dt>
  99 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.threading">Threads</a></span></dt>
 100 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.performance">Performance Evaluation</a></span></dt>
 101 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.history">Revision History</a></span></dt>
 102 <dt><span class="section"><a href="mpi/python.html#mpi.acknowledge">Acknowledgments</a></span></dt>
 103 </dl></dd>
 104 </dl>
 105 </div>
 106 <div class="section">
 107 <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
 108 <a name="mpi.intro"></a>Introduction</h2></div></div></div>
 109 <p>
 110       Boost.MPI is a library for message passing in high-performance parallel applications.
 111       A Boost.MPI program is one or more processes that can communicate either via
 112       sending and receiving individual messages (point-to-point communication) or
 113       by coordinating as a group (collective communication). Unlike communication
 114       in threaded environments or using a shared-memory library, Boost.MPI processes
 115       can be spread across many different machines, possibly with different operating
 116       systems and underlying architectures.
 117     </p>
 118 <p>
 119       Boost.MPI is not a completely new parallel programming library. Rather, it
 120       is a C++-friendly interface to the standard Message Passing Interface (<a href="http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/mpi/" target="_top">MPI</a>), the most popular library
 121       interface for high-performance, distributed computing. MPI defines a library
 122       interface, available from C, Fortran, and C++, for which there are many <a href="http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/mpi/implementations.html" target="_top">MPI implementations</a>.
 123       Although there exist C++ bindings for MPI, they offer little functionality
 124       over the C bindings. The Boost.MPI library provides an alternative C++ interface
 125       to MPI that better supports modern C++ development styles, including complete
 126       support for user-defined data types and C++ Standard Library types, arbitrary
 127       function objects for collective algorithms, and the use of modern C++ library
 128       techniques to maintain maximal efficiency.
 129     </p>
 130 <p>
 131       At present, Boost.MPI supports the majority of functionality in MPI 1.1. The
 132       thin abstractions in Boost.MPI allow one to easily combine it with calls to
 133       the underlying C MPI library. Boost.MPI currently supports:
 134     </p>
 135 <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
 136 <li class="listitem">
 137           Communicators: Boost.MPI supports the creation, destruction, cloning, and
 138           splitting of MPI communicators, along with manipulation of process groups.
 139         </li>
 140 <li class="listitem">
 141           Point-to-point communication: Boost.MPI supports point-to-point communication
 142           of primitive and user-defined data types with send and receive operations,
 143           with blocking and non-blocking interfaces.
 144         </li>
 145 <li class="listitem">
 146           Collective communication: Boost.MPI supports collective operations such
 147           as <code class="computeroutput"><a class="link" href="boost/mpi/reduce.html" title="Function reduce">reduce</a></code>
 148           and <code class="computeroutput"><a class="link" href="boost/mpi/gather.html" title="Function gather">gather</a></code>
 149           with both built-in and user-defined data types and function objects.
 150         </li>
 151 <li class="listitem">
 152           MPI Datatypes: Boost.MPI can build MPI data types for user-defined types
 153           using the <a href="http://www.boost.org/libs/serialization/doc" target="_top">Boost.Serialization</a>
 154           library.
 155         </li>
 156 <li class="listitem">
 157           Separating structure from content: Boost.MPI can transfer the shape (or
 158           "skeleton") of complexc data structures (lists, maps, etc.) and
 159           then separately transfer their content. This facility optimizes for cases
 160           where the data within a large, static data structure needs to be transmitted
 161           many times.
 162         </li>
 163 </ul></div>
 164 <p>
 165       Boost.MPI can be accessed either through its native C++ bindings, or through
 166       its alternative, <a class="link" href="mpi/python.html" title="Python Bindings">Python interface</a>.
 167     </p>
 168 </div>
 169 </div>
 170 <table xmlns:rev="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~gregod/boost/tools/doc/revision" width="100%"><tr>
 171 <td align="left"><p><small>Last revised: October 30, 2014 at 10:20:19 GMT</small></p></td>
 172 <td align="right"><div class="copyright-footer"></div></td>
 173 </tr></table>
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