A component-based parallel constraint solver

As a case study that illustrates our view on coordination and component-based software engineering, we present the design and implementation of a parallel constraint solver. The parallel solver coordinates autonomous instances of a sequential constraint solver, which is used as a software component. The component solvers achieve load balancing of tree search through a time-out mechanism. Experiments show that the purely exogenous mode of coordination employed here yields a viable parallel solver that effectively reduces turn-around time for constraint solving on a broad range of hardware platforms.