This paper describes an integrated graphicM toolset for performance-oriented design of portable parallel software. The toolset consists of a graphical design tool based on the PVM communications library for building parallel algorithms, a simulation engine and a visualisation tool for animation of program execution and visualisation of platform and network performance measures and statistics. The toolset is used to model a virtual machine composed of a cluster of workstations interconnected by a local area network. The simulation model used is modular and its components are interchangeable which allows easy reconfiguration of the platform. The model is validated using experiments on the COMMS1 Benchmark from the Parkbench suite, and a standard image processing algorithm with accuracy to within 10%.

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