Heterogeneous Parallel and Distributed Computing with Java (HPDCJ)

Our proposal focuses on the ease of use and programmability of Java for distributed heterogeneous computing in order to make it exploitable by the huge user base of mainstream computing. Based on previous work (PCJ library http://pcj.icm.edu.pl), we will introduce and transparently expose parallelism in Java, with minimal change to the specifics of the language, thus allowing programmers to focus on the application. We have demonstrated power and scalability of the PCJ library for the parallel systems and we will extend it for the cases where communication cost and latency could be higher.

We will extend the existing solution with the capability of running on the heterogeneous systems including GPU and mobile devices. The user will obtain the possibility to execute computational intensive parts of the application on multiple GPUs. Since our solution is based on Java it can be easily run on mobile devices. Within the project we will extend the library capabilities with the optimised communication and scheduling mechanism necessary to fully use such devices.

We will utilise the potential of the parallel Java library to process distributed data. The existing solution benefits from the parallel I/O performed by the multiple JVMs. We will use this solution to optimise the process of data distribution and storage including streaming of the large data sets.

We will address dependability and resilience by adding fault tolerance mechanisms to the parallel Java library including fault detection and rescheduling of the application execution. The mechanism will extend capabilities of the existing PCJ library and will be transparent to the users.

We will show the applicability of our framework for distributed heterogeneous systems by a set of selected, key applications including data-intensive Big Data applications.
Our potential success will create a solution for Java programming that will be very attractive to a wide mainstream user base and will thus have a game-changing influence on the European computing industry.

We assembled a carefully selected team with complementary focuses and the right degree of overlap. Most of the partners have worked in close collaboration in previous (EU) projects with remarkable success. We believe this to become a key pilot project that can open the way for future research, which will have a profound impact on mainstream computing.

The developed libraries will address problems of communication and computation scheduling on the parallel and distributed systems. We will especially investigate problems erasing with the efficient utilisation of multicore systems with the heterogeneous architecture.

The developed solutions will be applied to the selected applications from large scale data analysis. Therefore we will address concrete solutions for important parallel and distributed computing challenges especially in the Big Data area. This will improve European competitiveness in areas that are most important for Europe.

The HPDCJ project trough industrial partners, HPC centres and research groups in the area of parallel computing will strengthened European industry and research in the supply, operation and use of heterogeneous parallel systems and will allow to achieving world- leadership. Development of new programming paradigms, libraries and applications will contribute to the next generation computing. Through partners, project will exploit synergies with on-going EC-supported efforts in heterogeneous platforms and the deployment of leadership-class HPC systems under PRACE.

The main application area is data analysis. The data produced is growing at 50 percent a year, or more than doubling every two years as estimates IDC. Improved access to information is also fuelling the Big Data trend. For example, government data - employment figures and other information - has been steadily migrating onto the Web. In business, economics and other fields, decisions will increasingly be based on data and analysis rather than on experience and intuition.

The recent study Data Equity: Unlocking the value of big data (see reference [19], case for support) validates current industry thinking that big data will herald the next phase of technology-led business innovation, productivity and competition. As the amount of data continues to grow, compounded by the internet, social media, cloud computing and mobile devices, it poses both a challenge and an opportunity for businesses - how to manage, analyse and make use of the ever-increasing amount of data being generated. As a result, organisations are turning to big data analytics solutions such as high-performance analytics to unlock the value of data and reveal previously unseen patterns, sentiments and customer intelligence.

The investigation based on the 179 large companies found that those adopting "data-driven decision making" achieved productivity gains that were 5 percent to 6 percent higher than other factors could explain.

The parallel Java libraries, tools and skeletons developed by the HPDCJ project as well as demonstration of their usability for the adoption of big data analytics applications will significantly influence this market. Adoption of the solutions to the state of the art heterogeneous parallel and distributed systems will be easier and available to much larger user communities. Participation of the commercial partner who is already present on this market makes this prediction more.

The project opens the way for wide adoption of Java for scalable parallel simulations and data processing will significantly increase the number of applications. We believe that HPDCJ project through new tolls, libraries, use cases and examples will lower entry barrier for parallel heterogenous computing and therefore will attract young developers from universities, academia and industry. Thus, the potential impact on the European computing to be potentially game changing.