DistArray 0.3: development release

Documentation: http://distarray.readthedocs.org

License: Three-clause BSD

Python versions: 2.7 and 3.3

OS support: *nix and Mac OS X

What is DistArray?

DistArray aims to bring the strengths of NumPy to data-parallel high-performance computing. It provides distributed multi-dimensional NumPy-like arrays and distributed ufuncs, distributed IO capabilities, and can integrate with external distributed libraries, like Trilinos. DistArray works with NumPy and builds on top of it in a flexible and natural way.

0.3 Release

This is the second development release.

Noteworthy improvements in 0.3 include:

  • support for distributions over a subset of processes;
  • distributed reductions with a simple NumPy-like API: da.sum(axis=3) ;
  • an apply() function for easier computation with process-local data;
  • performance improvements and reduced communication overhead;
  • cleanup, renamings, and refactorings;
  • test suite improvements for parallel testing; and
  • start of a more frequent release schedule.

DistArray is not ready for real-world use. We want to get input from the larger scientific-Python community to help drive its development. The API is changing rapidly and we are adding many new features on a fast timescale. DistArray is currently implemented in pure Python for maximal flexibility. Performance improvements are ongoing.

Existing features

Distarray:

  • has a client-engine (or master-worker) process design – data resides on the worker processes, commands are initiated from master;
  • allows full control over what is executed on the worker processes and integrates transparently with the master process;
  • allows direct communication between workers bypassing the master process for scalability;
  • integrates with IPython.parallel for interactive creation and exploration of distributed data;
  • supports distributed ufuncs (currently without broadcasting);
  • builds on and leverages MPI via MPI4Py in a transparent and user-friendly way;
  • supports NumPy-like structured multidimensional arrays;
  • has basic support for unstructured arrays;
  • supports user-controllable array distributions across workers (block, cyclic, block-cyclic, and unstructured) on a per-axis basis;
  • has a straightforward API to control how an array is distributed;
  • has basic plotting support for visualization of array distributions;
  • separates the array’s distribution from the array’s data – useful for slicing, reductions, redistribution, broadcasting, and other operations;
  • implements distributed random arrays;
  • supports .npy-like flat-file IO and hdf5 parallel IO (via h5py); leverages MPI-based IO parallelism in an easy-to-use and transparent way; and
  • supports the distributed array protocol [protocol], which allows independently developed parallel libraries to share distributed arrays without copying, analogous to the PEP-3118 new buffer protocol.

Planned features and roadmap

  • Distributed slicing
  • Re-distribution methods
  • Integration with Trilinos [Trilinos] and other packages [petsc] that subscribe to the distributed array protocol [protocol]
  • Distributed broadcasting
  • Distributed fancy indexing
  • MPI-only communication for non-interactive deployment on clusters and supercomputers
  • Lazy evaluation and deferred computation for latency hiding
  • Out-of-core computations
  • Extensive examples, tutorials, documentation
  • Support for distributed sorting and other non-trivial distributed algorithms
  • End-user control over communication and temporary array creation, and other performance aspects of distributed computations

History

Brian Granger started DistArray as a NASA-funded SBIR project in 2008. Enthought picked it up as part of a DOE Phase II SBIR [SBIR] to provide a generally useful distributed array package. It builds on IPython, IPython.parallel, NumPy, MPI, and interfaces with the Trilinos suite of distributed HPC solvers (via PyTrilinos [Trilinos]).

[protocol](1, 2) http://distributed-array-protocol.readthedocs.org/en/rel-0.10.0/
[Trilinos](1, 2) http://trilinos.org/
[petsc]http://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/
[SBIR]http://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/410257