Abstract

We propose extensions to the Message-Passing Interface (MPI) Standard that provide for dynamic process management, including spawning of new processes by a running application. Such extensions are needed if more of the runtime environment for parallel programs is to be accessible to MPI programs or to be themselves written using MPI. The extensions proposed here are motivated by real applications and fit cleanly with existing concepts of MPI. 1 Introduction During 1993 and 1994 a group composed of parallel computer vendors, library writers, and application scientists created a standard message passing library interface specification [1, 2, 4]. This group, which called itself the MPI Forum, chose to propose a standard only for the message-passing library, attempting to unify and subsume the plethora of existing libraries. They deliberately and explicitly did not propose a standard for how processes would be created in the first place, only for how they would communicate once they...

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