16,907 research outputs found
Components and Interfaces of a Process Management System for Parallel Programs
Parallel jobs are different from sequential jobs and require a different type
of process management. We present here a process management system for parallel
programs such as those written using MPI. A primary goal of the system, which
we call MPD (for multipurpose daemon), is to be scalable. By this we mean that
startup of interactive parallel jobs comprising thousands of processes is
quick, that signals can be quickly delivered to processes, and that stdin,
stdout, and stderr are managed intuitively. Our primary target is parallel
machines made up of clusters of SMPs, but the system is also useful in more
tightly integrated environments. We describe how MPD enables much faster
startup and better runtime management of parallel jobs. We show how close
control of stdio can support the easy implementation of a number of convenient
system utilities, even a parallel debugger. We describe a simple but general
interface that can be used to separate any process manager from a parallel
library, which we use to keep MPD separate from MPICH.Comment: 12 pages, Workshop on Clusters and Computational Grids for Scientific
Computing, Sept. 24-27, 2000, Le Chateau de Faverges de la Tour, Franc
Global Grids and Software Toolkits: A Study of Four Grid Middleware Technologies
Grid is an infrastructure that involves the integrated and collaborative use
of computers, networks, databases and scientific instruments owned and managed
by multiple organizations. Grid applications often involve large amounts of
data and/or computing resources that require secure resource sharing across
organizational boundaries. This makes Grid application management and
deployment a complex undertaking. Grid middlewares provide users with seamless
computing ability and uniform access to resources in the heterogeneous Grid
environment. Several software toolkits and systems have been developed, most of
which are results of academic research projects, all over the world. This
chapter will focus on four of these middlewares--UNICORE, Globus, Legion and
Gridbus. It also presents our implementation of a resource broker for UNICORE
as this functionality was not supported in it. A comparison of these systems on
the basis of the architecture, implementation model and several other features
is included.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure
Functional requirements document for the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Scientific Computing Facilities (SCF) of the NASA/MSFC Earth Science and Applications Division, 1992
Five scientists at MSFC/ESAD have EOS SCF investigator status. Each SCF has unique tasks which require the establishment of a computing facility dedicated to accomplishing those tasks. A SCF Working Group was established at ESAD with the charter of defining the computing requirements of the individual SCFs and recommending options for meeting these requirements. The primary goal of the working group was to determine which computing needs can be satisfied using either shared resources or separate but compatible resources, and which needs require unique individual resources. The requirements investigated included CPU-intensive vector and scalar processing, visualization, data storage, connectivity, and I/O peripherals. A review of computer industry directions and a market survey of computing hardware provided information regarding important industry standards and candidate computing platforms. It was determined that the total SCF computing requirements might be most effectively met using a hierarchy consisting of shared and individual resources. This hierarchy is composed of five major system types: (1) a supercomputer class vector processor; (2) a high-end scalar multiprocessor workstation; (3) a file server; (4) a few medium- to high-end visualization workstations; and (5) several low- to medium-range personal graphics workstations. Specific recommendations for meeting the needs of each of these types are presented
Pando: Personal Volunteer Computing in Browsers
The large penetration and continued growth in ownership of personal
electronic devices represents a freely available and largely untapped source of
computing power. To leverage those, we present Pando, a new volunteer computing
tool based on a declarative concurrent programming model and implemented using
JavaScript, WebRTC, and WebSockets. This tool enables a dynamically varying
number of failure-prone personal devices contributed by volunteers to
parallelize the application of a function on a stream of values, by using the
devices' browsers. We show that Pando can provide throughput improvements
compared to a single personal device, on a variety of compute-bound
applications including animation rendering and image processing. We also show
the flexibility of our approach by deploying Pando on personal devices
connected over a local network, on Grid5000, a French-wide computing grid in a
virtual private network, and seven PlanetLab nodes distributed in a wide area
network over Europe.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 2 table
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Computing infrastructure issues in distributed communications systems : a survey of operating system transport system architectures
The performance of distributed applications (such as file transfer, remote login, tele-conferencing, full-motion video, and scientific visualization) is influenced by several factors that interact in complex ways. In particular, application performance is significantly affected both by communication infrastructure factors and computing infrastructure factors. Several communication infrastructure factors include channel speed, bit-error rate, and congestion at intermediate switching nodes. Computing infrastructure factors include (among other things) both protocol processing activities (such as connection management, flow control, error detection, and retransmission) and general operating system factors (such as memory latency, CPU speed, interrupt and context switching overhead, process architecture, and message buffering). Due to a several orders of magnitude increase in network channel speed and an increase in application diversity, performance bottlenecks are shifting from the network factors to the transport system factors.This paper defines an abstraction called an "Operating System Transport System Architecture" (OSTSA) that is used to classify the major components and services in the computing infrastructure. End-to-end network protocols such as TCP, TP4, VMTP, XTP, and Delta-t typically run on general-purpose computers, where they utilize various operating system resources such as processors, virtual memory, and network controllers. The OSTSA provides services that integrate these resources to support distributed applications running on local and wide area networks.A taxonomy is presented to evaluate OSTSAs in terms of their support for protocol processing activities. We use this taxonomy to compare and contrast five general-purpose commercial and experimental operating systems including System V UNIX, BSD UNIX, the x-kernel, Choices, and Xinu
Status and projections of the NAS program
NASA's Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Program has completed development of the initial operating configuration of the NAS Processing System Network (NPSN). This is the first milestone in the continuing and pathfinding effort to provide state-of-the-art supercomputing for aeronautics research and development. The NPSN, available to a nation-wide community of remote users, provides a uniform UNIX environment over a network of host computers ranging from the Cray-2 supercomputer to advanced scientific workstations. This system, coupled with a vendor-independent base of common user interface and network software, presents a new paradigm for supercomputing environments. Background leading to the NAS program, its programmatic goals and strategies, technical goals and objectives, and the development activities leading to the current NPSN configuration are presented. Program status, near-term plans, and plans for the next major milestone, the extended operating configuration, are also discussed
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