Parallel Computing at a Glance
Chapter 1: Parallel Computing at a Glance
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Parallel Computing at a Glance
It is now clear that silicon based processor chips are reaching their physical limits in processing speed, as they are constrained by the speed of electricity, light, and certain thermodynamic laws. A viable solution to overcome this limitation is to connect multiple processors working in coordination with each other to solve grand challenge problems. Hence, high performance computing requires the use of Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) systems containing thousands of powerful CPUs. A dominant representative computing system (hardware) built using MPP approach is C-DACs PARAM supercomputer. By the end of this century, all high performance systems will be parallel computer systems. High-end super computers will be the Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) systems having thousands of processors interconnected. To perform well, these parallel systems require an operating system radically different from current ones. Most researchers in the field of operating systems (including PARAS microkernel designers!) have found that these new operating systems will have to be much smaller than traditional ones to achieve the efficiency and flexibility needed. The solution appears to be to have a new kind of OS that is effectively a compromise between having no OS at all and having a large monolithic OS that does many things that are not needed. At the heart of this approach is a tiny operating system core called a microkernel. Dominant representative operating systems built using microkernel approach are Mach and C-DACs PARAS microkernel. This chapter presents an overview of parallel computing in general and correlates all those concepts to the PARAM and PARAS advented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC). It starts with the discussion on need of parallel systems for High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC). It also presents an overview of PARAM family of
1
1
Parallel Computing at a Glance
It is now clear that silicon based processor chips are reaching their physical limits in processing speed, as they are constrained by the speed of electricity, light, and certain thermodynamic laws. A viable solution to overcome this limitation is to connect multiple processors working in coordination with each other to solve grand challenge problems. Hence, high performance computing requires the use of Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) systems containing thousands of powerful CPUs. A dominant representative computing system (hardware) built using MPP approach is C-DACs PARAM supercomputer. By the end of this century, all high performance systems will be parallel computer systems. High-end super computers will be the Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) systems having thousands of processors interconnected. To perform well, these parallel systems require an operating system radically different from current ones. Most researchers in the field of operating systems (including PARAS microkernel designers!) have found that these new operating systems will have to be much smaller than traditional ones to achieve the efficiency and flexibility needed. The solution appears to be to have a new kind of OS that is effectively a compromise between having no OS at all and having a large monolithic OS that does many things that are not needed. At the heart of this approach is a tiny operating system core called a microkernel. Dominant representative operating systems built using microkernel approach are Mach and C-DACs PARAS microkernel. This chapter presents an overview of parallel computing in general and correlates all those concepts to the PARAM and PARAS advented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC). It starts with the discussion on need of parallel systems for High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC). It also presents an overview of PARAM family of