The parallel search bench ZRAM and its applications

Distributed and parallel computation is, on the one hand, the cheapest way to increase raw computing power. Turning parallelism into a useful tool for solving new problems, on the other hand, presents formidable challenges to computer science. We believe that parallel computation will spread among general users mostly through the ready availability of convenient and powerful program libraries. In contrast to general-purpose languages, a program library is specialized towards a well-defined class of problems and algorithms. This narrow focus permits developers to optimize algorithms, once and for all, for parallel computers of a variety of common architectures. This paper presents ZRAM, a portable parallel library of exhaustive search algorithms, as a case study that proves the feasibility of achieving simultaneously the goals of portability, efficiency, and convenience of use. Examples of massive computations successfully performed with the help of ZRAM illustrate its capabilities and use.