Interpreting Parallel Processor Performance Measurements
Harry F. Jordan · SIAM Journal on Scientific and Statistical Computing · 1987
This paper discusses execution time versus number of simultaneous operations in parallel computing systems. The main focus is on shared memory multiprocessors. A model for execution time as a function of the number of processes used in a computation is developed. The model addresses the effect of sequential code, code which can be executed by only a limited number of processes, hardware limits to speedup, critical section synchronization overhead and the influence of task granularity. The model is shown to correspond very closely to experimental measurements of execution time on the HEP pipelined, shared memory multiprocessor. Use of the model as an analysis tool in complex parallel programs is indicated.