Inter processor communication on a multi-processor system using proxies

A parallel processing system runs an operating system designed for single processor systems and an application designed for single processor systems. The application is split into units of work or tasks that can be run on multiple processors. A proxy is used on each processor to allow the tasks on different processors to communicate. A task PT-A on one processor P0 may pass data to the OS 300P0 which may then pass it to the proxy 3000P0 on the same processor. The proxy may then pass the data to the proxy 3000Pn on the remote processor Pn, which may pass the data to the receiving task PT-B via the OS 300Pn. The multi-processor system may be divided into two groups of processors with units of work running on both groups. The communication may be by sockets, a message queue or a FIFO.