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Serialization

Converting Python objects into bytes so they can be sent to another machine. Large task arguments are serialized and copied to every worker that needs them.

A frequent hidden cost: passing a large object as an argument to many tasks can move more data than the computation saves.

Distributed computePerformance & optimization

Related terms

  • Task: One unit of distributed work: a single call to a function decorated with the distribute decorator. Tasks are stateless, so each call starts fresh.
  • Transfer cost: The time spent moving data between machines, or between host and GPU memory. Often the reason an operation is not worth accelerating.