A Distributed and Parallel Processing Laboratory

通过这个项目，正在建立一个教学实验室，为本科计算机科学专业的学生提供分布式和并行处理技术的实践经验。虽然大多数本科生在本科期间在不同的课程中学习分布式和并行计算的各个方面，但很少有人真正获得此类系统的实践经验。大多数通用计算实验室不是为说明分布式和并行计算中涉及的各种概念所需的系统配置和重新配置类型而设计的。此外，这类系统的可用性普遍较低且成本较高，因此通常无法进行实际操作试验。这种情况的结果是，学生毕业后继续从事专业实践，强烈倾向于使用集中式计算技术，而不是分布式计算技术。这种情况的一个副作用是，分布式和并行系统尽管潜力很大，但在当今的计算技术中基本上没有得到充分利用。随着因特网和万维网等分布式处理系统的使用率继续迅速提高，对具有分布式计算专业知识的计算机专业人员的需求只会增加。在这个项目中建立的系统以合理的成本提供了一个系统，该系统可以用于在三门初级本科课程：并行处理、操作系统和数据结构和算法中提供对分布式和并行计算概念的动手接触。其他一些本科课程可能会从实验室中受益。该系统围绕一个Sun SPARC STATION_20和四个单处理器Sun SPARC STATION_4工作站组成。Sun工作站的选择符合当前的工业/学术实践。

Through this project, an instructional laboratory is being established to provide undergraduate computer science students with hands-on experience in distributed and parallel processing techniques. While most undergraduate students study various aspects of distributed and parallel computing in various courses during their undergraduate experience, very few actually receive hands-on experience on such systems. Most general-purpose computing laboratories are not designed for the type of system configuration and re-configuration needed to illustrate the various concepts involved in distributed and parallel computing. In addition, the generally low availability and high cost of such systems usually precludes hands-on experimentation. The result of this situation is that students graduate and proceed on to professional practice with a strong tendency to favor the use of centralized computing techniques over distributed computing techniques. One side-effect of this situation is that distributed and parallel systems, despite their high potentials, are largely underutilized in today's computing technology. The need for computer professionals with distributed computing expertise can only increase as distributed processing systems such as the Internet and the World Wide Web continue to make rapid gains in utilization. The system established in this project provides, at reasonable cost, a system that can be used to provide hands-on exposure to distributed and parallel computing concepts in three primary undergraduate courses: Parallel Processing, Operating Systems, and Data Structures and Algorithms. A number of other undergraduate courses may potentially benefit from the laboratory. The system is organized around one Sun SPARC station_20 with four processors and four uniprocessor Sun SPARC station_4 workstations. The choice of Sun workstations is consistent with current industrial/academic practice.