Uniform data transfer format

[erikzenker]

ZMQ and BMPI have slightly different demands on the data.

• ZMQ send data as a blob and does not care about data types.
• BMPI serializes complex data types with boost::serialize and primitive data types are send using the MPI primitive types.

[fabian-jung]

+1

[erikzenker]

I will add a new policy called serialization policy. Thus, the user can control how its input data should be serialized (or not). Forcing each input data to be serialized reduces bandwidth dramatically (the boost mpi team evaluated some benchmarks). I have several implementations in mind:

• NoSerialization: just forwards data to the underlying layer (should not produce overhead)
• ByteCast: Cast of input data to a byte array
• BoostSerialization: Use boost serialize
• MsgPack serialization
• Google Protocol Buffers serilization

[erikzenker]

I opened a pull request to document the developement of this issus (see #123).

[erikzenker]

There exists now a serialization policy, which was merged with #123.