What is MPI?

• MPI stands for Message Passing Interface
• library of functions (C/C++) or subroutines (Fortran)
• History
• Early message passing Argonne's P4 and Oak Ridge PVM in 1980s
• MPI-1 completed in May 1994
• MPI-2 completed in 1998
• parallel I/O
• C++/F90 bindings
• dynamic process management
• full MPI-2 implementations only recently
• MPI-2 features gradually added to MPI implementations