Easy As Pilot

A new method of programming HPC clusters that leverages standard MPI while being easier for novice users to understand and utilize. MPI’s large and daunting API presents multiprogramming hazards that even trained programmers find difficult to cope with (such as dead-lock.) In such instances detecting the condition, let alone diagnosing the cause is overly challenging for beginning scientific programmers.

Pilot is designed for scientific programmers that are experts in their own field but often possess only elementary C and FORTRAN knowledge. In Pilot, formal elements from CSP, valuable for creating a sound theoretical basis, are kept “under the hood” of an “stdio.h - inspired” interface to avoid intimidating users with the need to learn a process algebra. In short, the goal of this work is to make HPC programming more accessible and hazard-free for scientific users.