This course exposes students to the principal issues involved in software development for parallel computing and discusses a number of approaches to handle the problems and opportunities caused by the increased availability of parallel platforms.
The course includes lectures, assignments, self-study, and a project. 50% of your grade is determined by project work and 50% is determined by a written exam; the exam is given during the official examination period, and there is no makeup exam. Students must be able to program using Java and C/C++.
The course may cover: memory coherence and consistency models, implications for language-specific memory models, Java memory model, models of parallel programming and parallel program execution, performance models for parallel systems, transactional memory, compiler extraction of parallelism, language and compiler support for parallel programming, threads and their execution environment, synchronization, and implementation issues of these topics.
Lectures are given Mondays 13:15 - 16:00 in RZ F21.
Recitation sessions take place Thursdays 13:15 -- 15:00 in IFW B 42 and take place when announced. Some of the lecture hours will be devoted to other activities (tutorials, reviews, etc) or will be devoted to group meetings. Please watch this page for updates and announcements.
| Week | Monday | Thursday |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 09/23: Organization and Introduction, one slide per page | 09/26: No meeting |
| 1 | 09/30: Cache Coherence, one slide per page | 10/03: No meeting |
| 2 | 10/07: Memory Models, one slide per page | 10/10: Project Proposals and Cache Coherence |
| 3 | 10/14: Linearizability, one slide per page | 10/17: Sequential Consistency |
| 4 | 10/21: Languages and Locks, one slide per page | 10/24: Linearizability |
| 5 | 10/28: Locks and Lock-Free, one slide per page, Notes (unchecked, use at your own risk) | 10/31: Locks |
| 6 | 11/04: Project Presentations, Locks and Lock-Free cont., one slide per page | 11/07: Implementing Locks Code, Slides |
| 7 | 11/11: Locks and Lock-Free cont. | 11/14: Locks and Lock-Free cont. |
| 8 | 11/18: Amdahls law, one slide per page, Notes | 11/21: Progress Presentations |
| 9 | 11/25: Roofline Model, one slide per page, Notes | 11/28: Amdahl's Law |
| 10 | 12/9: Lock-Free and Distributed Memory, one slide per page | 12/12: No meeting |
| Thursday 13:15 - 15:00 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Room | Assistant | IFW B 42 | Timo Schneider | timo.schneider@inf.ethz.ch |
Assignments are an important part of the course. You will not learn this material from listening to a lecture alone -- you have to do the assignments.
Note: Do not hesitate to write on the mailing list or make an appointment with your TA if you have trouble with the assignments!
| Week | Assignment | Out | Description | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | 09/26 | Cache Coherence | Cache Coherence |
| 3 | 2 | 10/09 | Sequential Consistency | Sequential Consistency |
| 4 | 3 | 10/17 | Linearizability | Linearizability |
| 5 | 4 | 10/24 | Locks | Locks |
| 6 | 5 | 11/01 | Locks and Lock-Free | Code, Slides |
| 7 | 6 | 11/07 | Locks and MPI | Code |
| 8 | 7 | 11/21 | Amdahl's law | Amdahl's law |
| 9 | 8 | 11/29 | Balance principles | Balance principles solution |
| 10 | 9 | 12/12 | Consensus, Distributed Memory | Consensus, Distributed Memory |
| Number | Members | Team Name | Project Description | Final Presentation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boris Peltekov, Xavier Lapillonne | BitrepS | Bit Reproducible Sum | Final Presentation |
| 2 | Christian Zeman, Lukas Mosimann | Deadlocked | Fringe Search | Final Presentation |
| 3 | Benjamin Ulmer, Tobias Wicky | Connected Components | Final Presentation | |
| 4 | Christine Zeller, Karolos Antoniadis | Redpanda | Concurrent Skiplists | Final Presentation |
| 5 | Giuseppe Accaputo, Pascal Iselin | Due Fratelli | Parallel A* | Final Presentation |
| 6 | Otto Bibartiu, Mauro Calderara | SPIKE | Final Presentation | |
| 8 | Erik Henriksson | Parallel AVL Trees | Final Presentation |
50% of your grade is determined by the project, and the other 50% of the grade is determined by a written 2 hr exam which takes place on Tuesday, the 21st of January between 09:00-11:00. You are not allowed to use any electronic devices or books, notes, etc. to the exam.