Choose and build a target | You select the target executable that will be analyzed by Intel Advisor tools to predict its parallel behavior. |
Discover parallel opportunities | Run the Survey tool to understand where adding parallel execution can provide substantial performance improvements. The Survey tool runs and examines your running program. It does not require Intel Advisor annotations. |
Choose and mark the best parallel opportunities | You choose the best places to add parallel execution by selecting one or more parallel sites. Each parallel site contains one or more parallel tasks. To mark the sites and tasks, you use the Microsoft Visual Studio* or a different code editor to add annotations into your source code. You also need to configure the include path and reference the annotations definition file. |
Check performance implications | Run the Suitability tool with your program to predict the performance for the annotated sites and their tasks. The Suitability tool runs and examines your program. It uses annotations to predict your serial program executable's parallel behavior. |
Examine potential correctness problems. | Run the Correctness tool with your program to predict the data sharing problems for the annotated sites and their tasks. The Correctness tool runs and examines your program. It uses annotations to predict your serial program executable's parallel behavior. |
Decide on the proposed tasks | Before you modify your serial program to use parallel execution, use the Annotation Report window to decide on the proposed sites and their tasks. For each site, the Summary window lets you view the predicted performance benefit and data sharing problems side-by-side. |
Fix sharing problems | If the Correctness tool reports data sharing problems, you need to fix them before you modify the code to execute in parallel. Data sharing problems can be fixed by using one of these methods: Use synchronization to control access to the shared data. In this case, you add lock annotations to indicate where parallel synchronization code will be added later. If the data sharing was incidental or accidental, you can privatize the use of the shared data. In this case, the program is modified and lock annotations are not needed. Split the tasks in a single parallel site into two parallel sites. This forces all of the tasks in the first site to complete before the second site begins. This method enforces ordering constraints between these two sets of tasks.
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Check program correctness | Run the Correctness tool to verify that all reported data sharing problems have been fixed, and run the Suitability tool again. Also, you need to build and test the modified serial program to verify that it still produces the correct results. |
Add parallelism | Choose a parallel framework to implement parallel execution. Replace annotations with Intel® TBB, OpenMP*, or Intel® Cilk™ Plus code to introduce parallel execution and locks. As you replace annotations, use the Annotation Report window help you locate the annotations. This step enables the program to execute the tasks in parallel. |
Next steps for parallel program | You should verify that the parallel program behaves as expected and its performance characteristics match your expectations from the Suitability Report. Use Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2015 editions to test and tune your parallel program. |