The overview shows that there is already nearly a dozen of more or less powerful tools for PVM. However, there is no such thing like an integrated tool environment covering several of the software life-cycle phases. The above mentioned tools are neither integrated nor can they be used in parallel. The main reason is that some of them use specially instrumented versions of PVM that are not compatible with implementation concepts of other tools. Moreover, the presence of dynamic load balancing requires changes in the current concept of debugging and performance analysis which is restricted to static task graphs.
THE TOOL-SET of LRR-TUM will overcome these drawbacks by providing an integrated approach for online and trace-based tools. It will support implementation, maintenance, and production phases of the parallel software life-cycle and thus give the programmer a consistent concept for developing efficient parallel programs.