Team 6 Status Review October 18, 2005

CSCI 588 – FA05 David Woollard - Peter Tipton - Andrew Hart

Team 6 Status ReviewOctober 18, 2005

David Woollard (ID: 8735)

Andrew Hart (ID: 4152)

Peter Tipton (ID: 4594)

Campus


Topic Description

Graphical Development Environment for PS.LINDA Parallel Programming Language

Goals:• Visualize and manipulate component deployment/redeployment and

configuration for parallel workflows• Offer system views for both the scientific and system administration

community• Speed-up parallel computation development time through better

visualization of processes


Motivation

Process 0

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Process n

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Process 0

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TraditionalParallel WorkflowEach piece of data follows One predetermined path

Data 1

Data n


Motivation

Process 0

Node 0

Process 1

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Process 2

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Process n

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Process 1

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PS.LINDAParallel WorkflowEach piece of data canfollow any path

Data 1

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Process 1

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Description Revisited

Graphical Development Environment vs. Integrated Development Environment

A major hurtle for adopters of PS.LINDA has been visualization of system and deployment information in parallel with mental workflow models

No development environment for PS.LINDA exists currently

This environment must cater to users with vastly different approaches to parallel system development


Requirements (Abridged)

The environment shall consist of three views of a development of parallel code: workflow, component, and deployment.

The workflow view shall consist of a state diagram in which each state shall represent a data-parallel worker in the PS.LINDA language and transitions shall represent data (or tuples) exchanged between workers.

The system view shall provide the user the ability to create new states and new transitions, as well as assign transitions between states.

The environment shall generate skeleton code and allow further development in the PS.LINDA language for each of the workers and tuples generated in the workflow view.

The deployment view shall present the user with a listing and graphical view of system resources (i.e., each available machine and processor) in the target runtime environment.

The deployment view shall provide the user with the ability to modify deployment of components.

The environment shall provide the user the ability to save and re-load projects.


Navigation Map


User Analysis - Profiles

Computational and Research Scientists• Highly educated in a scientific field such as physics, math,

chemistry and/or biology. These users are less-knowledgeable about parallel codes but are well-motivated.

Computational Support Staff • Responsible for maintaining parallel systems such as

beowulf-class clustered supercomputers. System administrators, these uses are highly-skilled and well-motivated.

Parallel Programmers • Knowledgeable about both parallel code development and

system-level detail. They are interested in the use of this system to aid in productivity and ease-of-use. These users are capable of both high-level, conceptual development and low-level execution.


Dialog Styles

Two primary methods of user input will be used: Fill In Forms and Command Language• Fill-in Forms are useful for our Scientific users to specify

construction of parallel code elements and high-level interactions.

• Command Language (PS.LINDA) is both necessary and also a natural choice for our system considering the high familiarity of intended users

Direct Manipulation will also be supported, though not as a primary method, due to the highly visual nature of our system.


Task Analysis


Environment

The system will run on a PC workstation with access via network to a Beowulf-class clustered supercomputer.

There are no anticipated resource constraints.

Because of the type of application, the workstation shall be dedicated to parallel code development and execution, allowing monopolization of available computing resources including screen real estate.


I/O Devices

The sources of user input for this system are the standard keyboard and mouse attached to the workstation.

The output for this device will be the workstation monitor as well as the network interface to the computational cluster.


Visual Design: Metaphor and Iconography

Metaphor• A parallel workflow conceptualized as a state-diagram.• Each state is a type of worker and each state transition is a

data tuple produced at the source state and consumed at the sink state.

Iconography

WorkerTuple


Visual Design: Color and Font

Color Palette

Fonts

• Only system-supported fonts shall be used

• Sans-serif wherever possible

• User-entered text shall only appear on light or cream

backgrounds

Foreground Colors Background Colors


Home Page Design

Deployment

Workflow

Component

The deployment view is where users can view and dynamically modify the physical allocation characteristics of the task

The workflow view presents a diagrammatic perspective of the relationships of the components that make up the task

The component view allows for display and modification of the source code of any component of the task


Home Page Design (2/2)

Screen Real Estate Summary

Workflow (25%)

Deployment (33%)

Component (42%)

Background: Simple, two color scheme, with a distinct color for editable regions

Text Color: Burnt Sienna for good contrast against background colors

Graphics: Used only to display relational aspects of task components. No unnecessary graphics included

Layout: Related objects grouped logically together. Presents a coherent and uncluttered workspace to the user.


Walkthrough


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Conclusions

Our development environment captures parallel workflows with the metaphor of the state machine.

We offer three views of the system (Workflow, Component, and Deployment) matching the conceptual models of our end users.

Current development of this system is progressing in Python with a PyQT built QT graphical user interface.

While our application GUI is somewhat limited by our choice of programming language, we feel that it is important to build a real-world system adoptable by parallel code developers today.


Thank You

Documents

Team 6 Status Review October 18, 2005