Parallel Programming on Workstation Clusters

该项目影响如何使用工作站集群（本科院校最常见的计算平台）教授并行编程。 它利用了最近推出的廉价多处理器工作站和此类多处理器系统的集群。传统上，工作站集群上的并行编程是使用消息传递范例来完成的。然而，从编程的角度来看，消息传递范例具有严重的缺点，包括需要在程序中显式指定消息传递，并且必须考虑非常显着的通信延迟。人们普遍认为，首选的编程范例是共享内存范例。 对于已经接受过顺序编程并了解顺序编程的本科生来说尤其如此。该项目探索在工作站集群上使用共享内存编程，重点关注基于线程的并行编程。 正在开发用于本科教学的新教材，包括用于分布式共享内存的必要软件工具，以支持这种方法。 这项工作旨在将工作站集群上的纯粹消息传递编程转变为共享内存和混合共享内存/消息传递编程。除了为当地学生开发新课程外，这些课程还在 NC-REN（北卡罗来纳州几所大学的远程课堂网络）上提供。 该课程的另一个测试地点将是当地一所历史悠久的黑人大学。 该大学的一名教授将参与课程开发和培训，以便他能够在自己的机构教授和评估课程。 如果这种方法的概念验证成功，教学材料将在教科书中出版并通过网站提供。

This project impacts upon how parallel programming is taught using workstation clusters, the most common computing platform for undergraduate institutions. It utilizes the recent introduction of inexpensive multiprocessor workstations and clusters of such multiprocessor systems. Conventionally, parallel programming on workstation clusters has been done using the message-passing paradigm. However, the message-passing paradigm has serious disadvantages from a programming perspective, including requiring message passing to be specified explicitly in the program, and having to take into account very significant communication delays. It is widely accepted that a preferred programming paradigm is the shared memory paradigm. This is especially so for undergraduate students who have already been taught and understand sequential programming. This project explores the use of shared memory programming on workstation clusters, concentrating upon thread-based parallel programming. New educational materials for undergraduate teaching, including necessary software tools for distributed shared memory, are being developed to support this approach. This work is intended to make a change from purely message passing programming on workstation clusters to shared memory and hybrid shared memory/message-passing programming.In addition to developing new courses for the local students, the courses are being offered on the NC-REN, a teleclass network for several North Carolina universities. Another test site for the course will be a local historically black university. A professor from that university will be involved in course development and training to enable him to teach and assess the course at his own institution. If the proof-of-concept of this approach is successful, teaching materials will be published in a textbook and made available through a web site.