Java Performance for Scientific Applications on LLNL Computer Systems

Kapfer, C ; Wissink, A

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

关键词: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory;    Java;    99 General And Miscellaneous//Mathematics, Computing, And Information Science;    Computers;    Programming;   

DOI  :  10.2172/15005942
RP-ID  :  UCRL-ID-148317
RP-ID  :  W-7405-ENG-48
RP-ID  :  15005942

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

Languages in use for high performance computing at the laboratory--Fortran (f77 and f90), C, and C++--have many years of development behind them and are generally considered the fastest available. However, Fortran and C do not readily extend to object-oriented programming models, limiting their capability for very complex simulation software. C++ facilitates object-oriented programming but is a very complex and error-prone language. Java offers a number of capabilities that these other languages do not. For instance it implements cleaner (i.e., easier to use and less prone to errors) object-oriented models than C++. It also offers networking and security as part of the language standard, and cross-platform executables that make it architecture neutral, to name a few. These features have made Java very popular for industrial computing applications. The aim of this paper is to explain the trade-offs in using Java for large-scale scientific applications at LLNL. Despite its advantages, the computational science community has been reluctant to write large-scale computationally intensive applications in Java due to concerns over its poor performance. However, considerable progress has been made over the last several years. The Java Grande Forum [1] has been promoting the use of Java for large-scale computing. Members have introduced efficient array libraries, developed fast just-in-time (JIT) compilers, and built links to existing packages used in high performance parallel computing.