Introduction

PADRE (Parallel Asynchronous Data and Routing Engine) is a C++ layer for interfacing to libraries that distribute data on parallel computers. PADRE attempts to provide a uniform interface to several parallel decomposition libraries (KeLP, Multiblock PARTI, etc) and the communication mechanisms used by them.

Users

PADRE is used in at least two large projects at Los Alamos National Laboratories: POOMA and Overture. Libraries or applications that use PADRE are able to easily switch between different communication libraries. This is useful for portability and for making performance evaluations.

Evaluation

We are not planning to make an independent evaluation of PADRE. Our understanding of PADRE is that it is mainly useful in the context of writing certain parallel libraries. This is a highly specialized activity with an extremely limited number of potential users. An evaluation would therefore be difficult and would provide little benefit to the audience that our effort targets. However, you can submit your own evaluation of PADRE if you would like to.

Status

PADRE is not a separate application or library, and it should be directly dowloaded by individuals who need it in their projects.

Documentation

PADRE's documentation is available from its website. The documentation is informative but tends to be somewhat too generic and lacks specific examples of use.

Developers

Padre was developed at the Computing, Information, and Communications Division Scientific Computing Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Its main developers were Kei Davis and Dan Quinlan.