Ccaffeine - a CCA component framework for parallel computing

Credits

Ben Allan
Rob Armstrong
Sophia Lefantzi
Jaideep Ray
Edward Walsh
Pippin Wolfe

July 2005

The Neo binding for Ccaffeine is documented on the wiki.

2004

This is a Common Component Architecture prototype framework for distributed memory message passing High Performance Computing. The name Ccaffeine no longer stands for anything in particular. Ccaffeine is largely a product of the High Performance Computing Research Division at Sandia National Labs in Livermore, but also has benefited from many contributions from other labs and Universities. This web page is to be converted to a weblog as soon as I can get someone to install one Slashcode, in the meantime this is something handtooled to tide us over. Ccaffeine documentation can be found here.

19Oct03

Final feature set for SC03 Ccaffeine is in.

Decided to tag it "lemur" because that is an animal that Joe thinks is scary. Quick checkout:

cvs -d  $USER@cca-forum.org:/cvs/ccaffeine/repository co -r lemur ccafe

A better description along with a complete build transcript is available here.

Make sure you update the cca-spec-babel too, the new "goodbye kiss" pattern is in it per the last vote. Note that Ccaffeine implements the ComponentRelease interface and no longer does a setServices with a null object to signal imminent destruction. Note also that the "classic" binding to Ccaffeine still behaves in the same way.

29Sep03

Python install ready

cvs -d  $USER@cca-forum.org:/cvs/ccaffeine/repository co -r Python ccafe
cvs -d  $USER@cca-forum.org:/cvs/cca-spec/repository co -r Python cca-spec-babel

You need both the new cca-spec-babel and the new Ccaffeine. Make sure you have Python installed with the right Babelized libpython.so. Then use --with-babel-python in the configure for both cca-spec-babel and for ccaffeine. Let me know if there is a problem.

11Dec02

gcc >= 3.1 works with Ccaffeine now, important caveats though:

This information applies to the latest tar-ball which works fine with gcc 3.2. If you are using Ccaffeine scripting language (affectionately know as "BenSpeak") then please note that the friendly people at Gnu have changed (corrected?) the way .so's are loaded. You must use "repository get-global" where you might have used (and gotten away with) "repository get" before. This has caused no end of problems even though Ben has warned us repeatedly :-). The major symptom is that components are successfully connected and the port obtained through getPort() , but the dynamic_cast fails for no apparent reason. Using "repository get-global" will fix this.

26Oct02

A PortTranslator facility is now available, allowing the use of dynamic parameters in components.

Download the latest tarball here, or if your feeling gutsy you can check out a fresh copy directly from CVS. If you have access to the cca-forum.org machine do this:

cvs -d $USER@cca-forum.org:/home/ccaffeine/repository co -r "babelification" ccafe

or just use anonymous CVS checkout.

It should just build as usual, exactly the same as you already have it.
I have accomplished this by creating a special Babel gov::cca::Port called the PortTranslator. It has a method on it called getClassicPort that returns a classic::gov::cca::Port*. Translation is handled automatically: all you do is ask for a classic port by type, and it comes to you wrapped in a PortTranslator. Moreover, you can decorate your component with classic ports (like a ParameterPort) by wrapping the classic port in a PortTranslator and exporting via addProvidesPort in the usual way. The biggest headache comes from the fact that all foreign entities must go through an opaque data type in Babel, and that translates into a void*. Here is an example of the Ccaffeine build for this distro.

06Sep02

An example of building the new(er) Babel-enabled Ccaffeine.

Download the Babel-enabled Ccaffeine here.

20Jan02

Ccaffeine man page for using it after it is built.

21Aug02

Ccaffeine paper that appeared in Concurrency:

The CCA Core Specification in a Distributed Memory SPMD Framework, Concurrency Computat. 2002;14:1-23.

20Jan01