Project Goals

What we hope to achieve with OpenSHMEM

Current SHMEM implementations present many limitations to Application Developers:

• Some implementations depend heavily on the hardware.
• Non consistent APIs across implementations.
• Most implementations are closed source, which leaves little to no room for the involvement of Application Developers.

OpenSHMEM attempts to address these issues by:

• Creating an API specification that defines a standardized interface for writing parallel applications.
• Keeping portability in mind all throughout the development of OpenSHMEM. Making OpenSHMEM portable allows us to target a broader public which can provide valuable input for improving OpenSHMEM.
• Producing a reference implementation that will serve as a starting point for further development.
• Building a community of developers and vendors that can contribute to the improvement of OpenSHMEM.