From c3b26c5419dc2c7b572860cc7e683598949a5a38 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: farhadrclass <31899325+farhadrclass@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:08:32 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] Add distributed benchmarking support and tests

Introduces parallel execution for solver benchmarks using Julia's Distributed module. Adds a new example and test for distributed benchmarking, updates dependencies in Project.toml, and modifies bmark_solvers to support a parallel flag for running solvers concurrently across worker processes.
---
 Project.toml                               | 10 ++++
 examples/bmark_opt_problems_distributed.jl | 54 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 src/SolverBenchmark.jl                     |  2 +
 src/bmark_solvers.jl                       | 45 +++++++++++++++---
 test/runtests.jl                           |  1 +
 test/test_distributed.jl                   | 46 ++++++++++++++++++
 6 files changed, 152 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 examples/bmark_opt_problems_distributed.jl
 create mode 100644 test/test_distributed.jl

diff --git a/Project.toml b/Project.toml
index f2092bb7..86d08f03 100644
--- a/Project.toml
+++ b/Project.toml
@@ -3,19 +3,24 @@ uuid = "581a75fa-a23a-52d0-a590-d6201de2218a"
 version = "0.6.4"
 
 [deps]
+ADNLPModels = "54578032-b7ea-4c30-94aa-7cbd1cce6c9a"
 BenchmarkProfiles = "ecbce9bc-3e5e-569d-9e29-55181f61f8d0"
 BenchmarkTools = "6e4b80f9-dd63-53aa-95a3-0cdb28fa8baf"
 ColorSchemes = "35d6a980-a343-548e-a6ea-1d62b119f2f4"
 DataFrames = "a93c6f00-e57d-5684-b7b6-d8193f3e46c0"
+Distributed = "8ba89e20-285c-5b6f-9357-94700520ee1b"
 GitHub = "bc5e4493-9b4d-5f90-b8aa-2b2bcaad7a26"
 JLD2 = "033835bb-8acc-5ee8-8aae-3f567f8a3819"
 JSON = "682c06a0-de6a-54ab-a142-c8b1cf79cde6"
+JSOSolvers = "10dff2fc-5484-5881-a0e0-c90441020f8a"
 LaTeXStrings = "b964fa9f-0449-5b57-a5c2-d3ea65f4040f"
 LaTeXTabulars = "266f59ce-6e72-579c-98bb-27b39b5c037e"
 LibGit2 = "76f85450-5226-5b5a-8eaa-529ad045b433"
 LinearAlgebra = "37e2e46d-f89d-539d-b4ee-838fcccc9c8e"
 Logging = "56ddb016-857b-54e1-b83d-db4d58db5568"
 NLPModels = "a4795742-8479-5a88-8948-cc11e1c8c1a6"
+NLPModelsIpopt = "f4238b75-b362-5c4c-b852-0801c9a21d71"
+OptimizationProblems = "5049e819-d29b-5fba-b941-0eee7e64c1c6"
 PGFPlotsX = "8314cec4-20b6-5062-9cdb-752b83310925"
 PkgBenchmark = "32113eaa-f34f-5b0d-bd6c-c81e245fc73d"
 Plots = "91a5bcdd-55d7-5caf-9e0b-520d859cae80"
@@ -27,16 +32,21 @@ SparseArrays = "2f01184e-e22b-5df5-ae63-d93ebab69eaf"
 UnicodePlots = "b8865327-cd53-5732-bb35-84acbb429228"
 
 [compat]
+ADNLPModels = "0.8.12"
 BenchmarkProfiles = "0.4.6"
 BenchmarkTools = "^0.4.2, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 1"
 ColorSchemes = "^3.9"
 DataFrames = "^1.4, 1.5, 1.6"
+Distributed = "1.11.0"
 GitHub = "^5.0.2"
 JLD2 = "0.1.12, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5"
 JSON = "0.20.0, 0.21.0"
+JSOSolvers = "0.14.6"
 LaTeXStrings = "1.3"
 LaTeXTabulars = "^0.1.0"
 NLPModels = "0.14, 0.15, 0.16, 0.17, 0.18, 0.19, 0.20, 0.21"
+NLPModelsIpopt = "0.11.0"
+OptimizationProblems = "0.9.1"
 PGFPlotsX = "1.5"
 PkgBenchmark = "^0.2.0"
 Plots = "1.0, 1.1"
diff --git a/examples/bmark_opt_problems_distributed.jl b/examples/bmark_opt_problems_distributed.jl
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..33544e18
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/bmark_opt_problems_distributed.jl
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+using Distributed
+
+# 1. Setup Workers (One per solver is ideal, or use available cores)
+# We add workers if they aren't already there
+if nprocs() == 1
+    addprocs(Sys.CPU_THREADS - 2) 
+end
+
+# 2. Load packages on ALL workers
+@everywhere begin
+    using ADNLPModels
+    using JSOSolvers
+    using NLPModelsIpopt
+    using OptimizationProblems
+    using OptimizationProblems.ADNLPProblems
+    using SolverBenchmark
+end
+
+# These are only needed on the main process for saving/plotting
+using JLD2, Plots
+
+# define problems
+# NOTE: We keep this as a Generator. 
+# Because we are using "Parallel by Solver", the Worker will iterate this generator.
+# The instantiation '()' happens ON THE WORKER, which is memory-safe.
+probs = OptimizationProblems.meta
+problem_names = probs[(probs.ncon .== 0) .& .!probs.has_bounds .& (5 .<= probs.nvar .<= 100), :name]
+problems = (eval(Meta.parse(problem))() for problem ∈ problem_names)
+
+# define solvers
+# NOTE: Must be defined @everywhere so workers know what ':trunk' and ':ipopt' do.
+@everywhere begin
+    solvers = Dict(
+      :trunk => nlp -> trunk(nlp, atol = 1.0e-4, rtol = 1.0e-5, max_time = 10.0, verbose = 0),
+      :ipopt => nlp -> ipopt(nlp, tol = 1.0e-5, max_cpu_time = 10.0, print_level = 0, sb = "no"),
+    )
+end
+
+# solve problems, but skip one of our choice
+to_skip = ["thurber"]
+
+# 3. Run with parallel=true
+stats = bmark_solvers(
+    solvers, 
+    problems, 
+    skipif = prob -> prob.meta.name ∈ to_skip,
+    parallel = true # <--- NEW FLAG
+)
+
+# save DataFrame for later
+@save "stats_opt_problems.jld2" stats
+
+# plot time profile
+performance_profile(stats, df -> df.neval_obj)
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/SolverBenchmark.jl b/src/SolverBenchmark.jl
index b76bb66c..623d12fa 100644
--- a/src/SolverBenchmark.jl
+++ b/src/SolverBenchmark.jl
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ using PrettyTables
 using NLPModels
 using SolverCore
 
+using Distributed
+
 # reexport PrettyTable table formats for convenience
 export unicode,
   ascii_dots,
diff --git a/src/bmark_solvers.jl b/src/bmark_solvers.jl
index cc06b85a..ba00f6c4 100644
--- a/src/bmark_solvers.jl
+++ b/src/bmark_solvers.jl
@@ -1,25 +1,58 @@
 export bmark_solvers
 
 """
-    bmark_solvers(solvers :: Dict{Symbol,Any}, args...; kwargs...)
+    bmark_solvers(solvers :: Dict{Symbol,Any}, args...; parallel::Bool=false, kwargs...)
 
 Run a set of solvers on a set of problems.
 
 #### Arguments
 * `solvers`: a dictionary of solvers to which each problem should be passed
+* `parallel`: if true, runs each solver on a separate worker process (default: false)
 * other positional arguments accepted by `solve_problems`, except for a solver name
 
 #### Keyword arguments
 Any keyword argument accepted by `solve_problems`
 
 #### Return value
-A Dict{Symbol, AbstractExecutionStats} of statistics.
+A Dict{Symbol, DataFrame} of statistics.
 """
-function bmark_solvers(solvers::Dict{Symbol, <:Any}, args...; kwargs...)
+function bmark_solvers(solvers::Dict{Symbol, <:Any}, args...; parallel::Bool = false, kwargs...)
+
+  # --- 1. SERIAL PATH (Default) ---
+  if !parallel
+    stats = Dict{Symbol, DataFrame}()
+    for (name, solver) in solvers
+      @info "Running solver $name (Serial)"
+      stats[name] = solve_problems(solver, name, args...; kwargs...)
+    end
+    return stats
+  end
+
+  # --- 2. PARALLEL PATH (By Solver) ---
+  if nworkers() == 1
+    @warn "parallel=true but only 1 worker process found. Did you forget `addprocs()`?"
+  end
+
+  # Helper function runs on the worker
+  # It takes a pair (:solver_name, solver_function)
+  run_solver_worker = function (solver_pair)
+    sname, sfunc = solver_pair
+    @info "Worker $(myid()) running solver $sname"
+    result_df = solve_problems(sfunc, sname, args...; kwargs...)
+    return (sname, result_df)
+  end
+
+  # Collect solvers into a list so pmap can distribute them
+  solver_list = collect(solvers)
+
+  # Distribute work
+  results = pmap(run_solver_worker, solver_list)
+
+  # Aggregate results back into the Dict
   stats = Dict{Symbol, DataFrame}()
-  for (name, solver) in solvers
-    @info "running solver $name"
-    stats[name] = solve_problems(solver, name, args...; kwargs...)
+  for (name, df) in results
+    stats[name] = df
   end
+
   return stats
 end
diff --git a/test/runtests.jl b/test/runtests.jl
index 8357b508..aadd4494 100644
--- a/test/runtests.jl
+++ b/test/runtests.jl
@@ -24,3 +24,4 @@ include("test-tables.jl")
 include("profiles.jl")
 include("pkgbmark.jl")
 include("test_bmark.jl")
+include("test_distributed.jl")
diff --git a/test/test_distributed.jl b/test/test_distributed.jl
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..336bf137
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test_distributed.jl
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+using Distributed
+#THIS NEEDS TO BE TESTED IN DISTRIBUTED SERVER ENVIRONMENT
+
+if nprocs() == 1
+    addprocs(2)
+end
+
+@everywhere using ADNLPModels, JSOSolvers, NLPModelsIpopt, OptimizationProblems, SolverBenchmark
+@everywhere using OptimizationProblems.ADNLPProblems 
+
+@testset "Parallel vs Serial: Real OptimizationProblems" begin
+    
+    # 1. Setup Data
+    probs = OptimizationProblems.meta
+    problem_names = probs[(probs.ncon .== 0) .& .!probs.has_bounds .& (5 .<= probs.nvar .<= 100), :name][1:5]
+    
+    # Function to create fresh generator for each run
+    get_problems = () -> (eval(Meta.parse(problem))() for problem ∈ problem_names)
+
+    @everywhere begin
+        solvers = Dict(
+            :trunk => nlp -> trunk(nlp, atol = 1.0e-4, rtol = 1.0e-5, max_time = 10.0, verbose = 0),
+            :ipopt => nlp -> ipopt(nlp, tol = 1.0e-5, max_cpu_time = 10.0, print_level = 0, sb = "no"),
+        )
+    end
+    
+    to_skip = ["thurber"]
+    skip_fn = prob -> prob.meta.name ∈ to_skip
+
+    # 2. Run Serial
+    stats_serial = bmark_solvers(solvers, get_problems(), skipif = skip_fn, parallel=false)
+
+    # 3. Run Parallel
+    stats_parallel = bmark_solvers(solvers, get_problems(), skipif = skip_fn, parallel=true)
+
+    # 4. Compare
+    for k in keys(solvers)
+        df_s = sort(stats_serial[k], :name)
+        df_p = sort(stats_parallel[k], :name)
+
+        @test size(df_s) == size(df_p)
+        @test df_s.name == df_p.name
+        @test df_s.status == df_p.status
+        @test isapprox(df_s.objective, df_p.objective, atol=1e-5, nans=true)
+    end
+end
\ No newline at end of file