The Numerical Algorithms Group has released its NAG Library for SMP and Multicore. Mathematical and statistical algorithms optimized for performance on multicore architectures have become key to progress in various aspects of technical application development and computationally-intensive problem-solving.

The NAG Library for SMP and Multicore contains over 1600 routines, including over 100 new for this release. A complete listing of these routines can be found here.

"The NAG Library is very good for work on multiple cores because of the reliable parallel design of the algorithms," says Dr. Hartmut Schmider of the computational support team of the High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory at Queen's University, adding "but it is also [good] because of the common interface for both serial and multicore libraries. This enables users to speed up their code on many multiple core architectures with greatly reduced effort."

NAG's David Cassell adds that "most current processors are multicore, and can provide benefits when programmed with parallel techniques. In fact, if you do not use routines tuned for multicore architectures applications are now likely to execute more slowly. The NAG library for SMP and Multicore also has been designed to make it easy to move those applications that currently call serial routines into the parallel world, by the use of common calls and common documentation. This means users can quickly gain the benefits of parallel performance."