Heterogeneous network computing

HeNCE (Heterogeneous Network Computing Environment) is a parallel programming paradigm and tool which supports the creation, compilation, execution, debugging, and analysis of parallel programs for a heterogeneous group of computers. The HeNCE programmer specifies the parallelism of a computation by drawing a graph describing the dependencies between user defined procedures. HeNCE will then automatically execute these procedures on a user defined collection of machines on some network. Different versions of a procedure may exist for different architectures. HeNCE executes the appropriate version of a procedure for a chosen target machine architecture. HeNCE maps procedures to machines based on a user defined cost matrix. The HeNCE user dynamically configures a parallel collection of machines, referred to as a parallel virtual machine, on which the HeNCE program is to be run. During execution, HeNCE can collect trace and scheduling information which can be displayed in real time or saved to be replayed later.