All, The nice-ities of commodity, ILP and clock-driven performance improvements have given way to the complexity of multi-core (with two flavors, hetero and homo) and connected accelerators/processors (GPUs, FPGAs, HPC Specific Accelerators). And while the hardware mentioned is various, a large plurality of HPC applications are still data intensive (not all as the Berkeley "Dwarfs" remind us) and often suited to DLP and data flow techniques. A fundamental HPC programming problem is programming to this common algorithmic theme while the underlying processor environment shifts more rapidly that ever. This is a productivity, performance, and portability issue.
When things get too complicated on one side of an interface, computing types have a habit of creating a virtual layer that appeals to the side that remains consistent and hides the complexities of the other. A virtual machine and an interface to it is a theme that is creeping into the HPC environment. There is PeakStream model in which HPC (data parallel pre-dominant code) is compiled to a virtual machine that is a proxy for any resource that can process the data parallel kernel its API can represent (multi-many-core, accelerator, etc.). It has the added "marketed" bonus of dynamically creating the "right-sized", partially blocked chunks of said kernel (just in time) to meet the fixed computational intensity features of the particular destination hardware (flop/mop ratio) to manage its particular bandwidth insufficiencies. Then there is the virtual machine of Mitrion-C which serves as a proxy for whatever FPGA (mostly Xilinx at the moment) they support and you have attached to your processor. And there is Cray stated intent to provide an adadable computing environment and the huge problem of actually doing ... which suggests virtual machines again (at least to me). I am interested in discussing the benefits (and drawbacks) of this virtual machine concept as it relates to HPC and cluster computing in our increasingly complex processing environment. Does it makes sense at all? Is a DLP, data-flow oriented VM the right first choice for such a machine? What does the collective wisdom of Beowulf oracle have to say on the matter? Looking forward to your always interesting thoughts ... rbw -- Richard B. Walsh Project Manager Network Computing Services, Inc. Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC) [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 612.337.3467 > > "The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one > perceived. The subject and object are but one." > > Erwin Schroedinger ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This message (including any attachments) may contain proprietary or privileged information, the use and disclosure of which is legally restricted. If you have received this message in error please notify the sender by reply message, do not otherwise distribute it, and delete this message, with all of its contents, from your files. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
