Parallel Programming on Workstation Clusters

这个项目影响了如何使用工作站集群来教授并行编程，工作站集群是本科院校最常见的计算平台。它利用了最近引进的廉价的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式完成的。然而，从编程的角度来看，消息传递范式有严重的缺点，包括要求在程序中显式地指定消息传递，并且必须考虑非常重要的通信延迟。人们普遍认为，首选的编程范例是共享内存范例。这对于已经学习并理解顺序编程的本科生来说尤其如此。这个项目探讨了在工作站集群上使用共享内存编程，重点是基于线程的并行编程。为支持这种方法，正在开发新的本科教学教材，包括分布式共享内存所需的软件工具。这项工作旨在从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上提供，NC-REN是北卡罗来纳州几所大学的远程课堂网络。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。该大学的一位教授将参与课程开发和培训，使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证明取得成功，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.