Perspectives for High Performance Computing in Workstation Networks

. Networks of workstations have become increasingly popular for high performance computing. However, in order to becomea real alternative for MPPs, reliability and efficiency issues must be tackled. In this paper, we identify the key challenges for very large workstation networks, and describe implementation techniques at system software level to overcome these problems. CROWN, a testbed for experimenting with these mechanisms is briefly discussed. 1 Introduction High Performance Computing (HPC) to date has been attempted via one of three primary approaches: Vector-supercomputers (e.g., Cray), Massively Parallel Processors (MPPs, such as the Intel Paragon), and Networks of Workstations (NOWs). Vector supercomputers are expensive and MPPs are not cost-effective and often considered difficult to program. NOWs suffer from high latencies and scheduling overhead that is endemic in time-shared environments. Figure 1 projects the growth of workstation performance over the next two decades an..