Abstract. We provide an exposition of hypergraph models for parallelizing sparse matrix-vector multiplies. Our aim is to emphasize the expressive power of hypergraph models. First, we set forth an elementary hypergraph model for parallel matrix-vector multiply based on one-dimensional (1D) matrix partitioning. In the elementary model, the vertices represent the data of a matrix-vector multiply, and the nets encode dependencies among the data. We then apply a recently proposed hypergraph transformation operation to devise models for 1D sparse matrix partitioning. The resulting 1D partitioning models are equivalent to the previously proposed computational hypergraph models and are not meant to be replacements for them. Nevertheless, the new models give us insights into the previous ones and help us explain a subtle requirement, known as the consistency condition, of the hypergraph partitioning models. Later, we demonstrate the flexibility of the elementary model on a few 1D partitioning problems that are hard to solve using the previously proposed models. We also discuss extensions of the proposed elementary model to two-dimensional matrix partitioning. Key words. parallel computing, sparse matrix-vector multiply, hypergraph models AMS subject classifications. 05C50, 05C65, 65F10, 65F50, 65Y05 1. Introduction. Hypergraph-partitioning-based models for parallel sparse matrix-vector

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The efficiency of parallel iterative methods for solving linear systems, arising from reallife applications, depends greatly on matrix characteristics and on the amount of parallel overhead. It is often viewed that a major part of this overhead can be caused by parallel matrix-vector multiplications. However, for difficult large linear systems, the preconditioning operations needed to accelerate convergence are to be performed in parallel and may also incur substantial overhead. To obtain an efficient preconditioning, it is desirable to consider certain matrix numerical properties in the matrix partitioning process. In general, graph partitioners consider the nonzero structure of a matrix to balance the number of unknowns and to decrease communication volume among parts. The present work builds upon hypergraph partitioning techniques because of their ability to handle nonsymmetric and irregular structured matrices and because they correctly minimize communication volume. First, several hyperedge weight schemes are proposed to account for the numerical matrix property called diagonal dominance of rows and columns. Then, an algorithm for the independent partitioning of certain submatrices followed by the matching of the obtained parts is presented in detail along with a proof that it correctly minimizes the total communication volume. For the proposed variants of hypergraph partitioning models, numerical experiments compare the iterations to converge, investigate the diagonal dominance of the obtained parts, and show the values of the partitioning cost functions. 1

We present the PaToH MATLAB Matrix Partitioning Interface. The interface provides support for hypergraph-based sparse matrix partitioning methods which are used for efficient parallelization of sparse matrix-vector multiplication operations. The interface also offers tools for visualizing and measuring the quality of a given matrix partition. We propose a novel, multilevel, 2D coarsening-based 2D matrix partitioning method and implement it using the interface. We have performed extensive comparison of the proposed method against our implementation of orthogonal recursive bisection and fine-grain methods on a large set of publicly available test matrices. The conclusion of the experiments is that the new method can compete with the fine-grain method while also suggesting new research directions.