SUMMARY: HPC 2.0

From: Shawn Kondel (shawnk@sunfs.math.usu.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 06 1999 - 13:36:50 CDT


Sorry for the delay, I was hoping to receive more replies, but alas, I only
received one.

My original questions was

What are the advantages in having HPC 2.0 installed on multiprocessors machine?
How much performance increase do we get as a comparison if we don't have it
installed?

We have an Ultra Enterprise 4500 with 10 336mhz processors and it is use for
computing mathematical and statistical programs for research.

The reply I got was

HPC will have a license for LSF (Load Sharing Facility) which is useful for
loadbalancing.

Thank to Pitchumani for responding.

I am more interested in comparison on performance between a HPC unit and non-HPC
unit. Because the licenses for HPC 2.0 are very expensive, we wanted to see if
it worth purchasing.

I copied a portion of this page from Sun web site if it interest to the readers.

HPC 2.0 Overview

SunTM HPC 2.0 Software offers unrivaled parallel development tools, bringing
Sun's network computing vision to high-end technical markets. With tools that
connect multiple shared-memory machines for supercomputing class performance--at
a fraction of supercomputer costs--Sun is fast becoming a leader in
high-performance technical computing. Sun HPC Software supports standard
programming paradigms, like MPI message passing and data-parallel HPF. What's
more, our PrismTM programming environment is the same product that helped make
Thinking Machines Corporation the parallel software leader. Put that together
with the rest of our comprehensive suite of development and administration
tools, and you have the industry's most integrated, flexible--and
affordable--parallel development environment.
                                
Highlights

HPC 2.0 supports single symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs) and clusters of SMPs
with up to 256 processors.

Sun High-Performance Fortran (HPF) produces optimized parallel codes that run on
either a Sun HPC cluster or a single SMP system.

Prism graphical programming environment allows developers to execute, debug,
visualize, analyze, and tune both serial and parallel programs.

Sun Scientific Subroutine Library(S3L) provides scalable parallel functions and
tools for scientific applications.

Load Sharing Facility (LSF) optimizes load balancing, job execution, and
distributed batch scheduling.

Run-Time Environment (RTE) provides tools for optimizing parallel application
workload management, parallel resource sharing, and parallel load balancing.

Sun MPI delivers thread-safe message passing designed for communication among
multiple nodes in clusters as well as among processes on the same symmetric
multiprocessor (SMP).

Sun MPI I/O maximizes parallel I/O capabilities for message-passing among
multiple nodes in clusters.

Parallel File System(PFS) allows parallel applications to perform
high-performance, scalable I/O across multiple storage systems in parallel.

Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) is a public-domain message-passing library.

PETSc is a portable, extensible toolkit for scientific computation, providing
support for sparse iterative solvers.

Cluster Console Manager (CCM) enables administrators to open windows to each
node in a cluster and to initiate operations either across all nodes or across
subsets of nodes.

Switch Management Agent (SMA) helps the administrator configure and monitor the
SCI switch.

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Shawn Kondel Computer Specialist
Department of Mathematics & Statistics Email: shawnk@math.usu.edu
Utah State University Phone: (435) 797-4061
3900 Old Main Hill Fax: (435) 797-1822
Logan, UT 84322-3900 Web: www.math.usu.edu
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