A parallel programming model is a set of software technologies to express parallel algorithms and match applications with the underlying parallel systems. It encloses the areas of applications, languages, compilers, libraries, communication systems, and parallel I/O. People have to choose a proper parallel programming model or a form of mixture of them to develop their parallel applications on a particular platform.
Parallel models are implemented in several ways: as libraries invoked from traditional sequential languages, as language extensions, or complete new execution models. They are also roughly categoried for two kinds of systems: shared-memory system and distributed-memory system, though the lines between them are largely blured nowadays.
A program model is usually judged by its expressibility and simplicity, which are by all meanings conflicting factors. The ultimate goal is to improve productivity of programming.
Currenty main-stream parallel programming models are:
Other reseach-level models are:
- Cray’s Chapel,
- Sun’s Fortress,
- IBM’s X10