Virtual supercomputing on Macintosh desktop computers
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
Many computing problems of today require supercomputer performance, but do not justify the costs needed to run such applications on supercomputers. In order to fill this need, networks of high-end workstations are often linked-together to act as a single virtual parallel supercomputer. This project attempts to develop software that will allow less expensive `desktop` computers to emulate a parallel supercomputer. To demonstrate the viability of the software, it is being integrated with POV, a retracing package that is both computationally expensive and easily modified for parallel systems. The software was developed using the Metrowerks Codewarrier Version 6.0 compiler on a Power Macintosh 7500 computer. The software is designed to run on a cluster of power macs running system 7.1 or greater on an ethernet network. Currently, because of limitations of both the operating system and the Metrowerks compiler, the software is forced to make use of slower, high level communication interfaces. Both the operating system and the compiler software are under revision however, and these revisions will increase the performance of the system as a whole.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 576750
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-ID--114972-5; ON: DE97009099
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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