cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: An improved replacement for MPI_Alltoall - FFTW 3.3.3 cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95:
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6.7.3 An improved replacement for MPI_Alltoall

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We close this section by noting that FFTW's MPI transpose routines can cannam@95: be thought of as a generalization for the MPI_Alltoall function cannam@95: (albeit only for floating-point types), and in some circumstances can cannam@95: function as an improved replacement. cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95:

MPI_Alltoall is defined by the MPI standard as: cannam@95: cannam@95:

     int MPI_Alltoall(void *sendbuf, int sendcount, MPI_Datatype sendtype,
cannam@95:                       void *recvbuf, int recvcnt, MPI_Datatype recvtype,
cannam@95:                       MPI_Comm comm);
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In particular, for double* arrays in and out, cannam@95: consider the call: cannam@95: cannam@95:

     MPI_Alltoall(in, howmany, MPI_DOUBLE, out, howmany MPI_DOUBLE, comm);
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This is completely equivalent to: cannam@95: cannam@95:

     MPI_Comm_size(comm, &P);
cannam@95:      plan = fftw_mpi_plan_many_transpose(P, P, howmany, 1, 1, in, out, comm, FFTW_ESTIMATE);
cannam@95:      fftw_execute(plan);
cannam@95:      fftw_destroy_plan(plan);
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That is, computing a P × P transpose on P processes, cannam@95: with a block size of 1, is just a standard all-to-all communication. cannam@95: cannam@95:

However, using the FFTW routine instead of MPI_Alltoall may cannam@95: have certain advantages. First of all, FFTW's routine can operate cannam@95: in-place (in == out) whereas MPI_Alltoall can only cannam@95: operate out-of-place. cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95:

Second, even for out-of-place plans, FFTW's routine may be faster, cannam@95: especially if you need to perform the all-to-all communication many cannam@95: times and can afford to use FFTW_MEASURE or cannam@95: FFTW_PATIENT. It should certainly be no slower, not including cannam@95: the time to create the plan, since one of the possible algorithms that cannam@95: FFTW uses for an out-of-place transpose is simply to call cannam@95: MPI_Alltoall. However, FFTW also considers several other cannam@95: possible algorithms that, depending on your MPI implementation and cannam@95: your hardware, may be faster. cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: cannam@95: