Enabling Dynamic Selection of Implementation Variants in Component-Based Parallel Programming for Heterogeneous Systems

Abstract: Heterogeneous systems, consisting of CPUs and GPUs, offer the capability to address the demands of compute- and data-intensive applications. However, programming such systems is challenging, requiring knowledge of various parallel programming frameworks. This paper introduces COMPAR, a component-based parallel programming framework that enables the exposure and selection of multiple implementation variants of components at runtime. The framework leverages compiler directive-based language extensions to annotate the source code and generate the necessary glue code for the StarPU runtime system. COMPAR provides a unified view of implementation variants and allows for intelligent selection based on runtime context. Our evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of COMPAR through benchmark applications. The proposed approach simplifies heterogeneous parallel programming and promotes code reuse while achieving optimal performance.