Software engineering for parallel systems: the TRAPPER approach

TRAPPER is a graphical programming environment for parallel systems. The novel approach introduced with TRAPPER is the support of the different stages of the software engineering process with emphasis on the specific problems of parallel systems. The programming environment contains components for the software design, hardware configuration, mapping, monitoring, software visualization and performance monitoring of parallel applications and systems. TRAPPER provides a graphical design methodology which allows a hierarchical specification of the parallel structure of the application software. The design methodology is based on process graphs which are an appropriate graphical notation for the partitioning of the application into co-operating sequential processes. The graphical notations are used during the whole development cycle thus providing a homogeneous view of the parallel system at all development stages.