 |
|
DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
|
Special Features:
MVAPICH SOFTWARE SPEEDS
SUPERCOMPUTER PROCESSING
Ohio State University researchers are answering questions about global
climate
change and the make up of complicated molecules with MVAPICH, a new software
designed to manage communication between cluster nodes. MVAPICH helps to
hasten data flow by connecting software with networking technology.
Nodes are made up of clusters of connected desktop computers, differing
greatly from the expensive and enormous mainframes of the past.
Scientific visualizations create complicated problems for cluster
computing.
MVAPICH, rather than simply adding nodes to a cluster in an attempt to make
calculations faster, connects with InfiniBand technology to bridge the gap
between MPI and VAPI.
Infiniband is a networking architechture that supports HPC systems. VAPI
is
an Infiniband software interface. Before MVAPICH, compatibility between
InfiniBand and MPI was impossible.
MVAPICH even supports Virginia Tech's recent Macintosh-based supercomputer
which holds the third place in the world's top 500 fastest.
In addition, MVAPICH has been used to build an off-the-shelf supercomputer
which is able to reach teraflop level computing status -- trillions of
calculations per second.
Teraflop level computing was demonstrated at Supercomputing 2003 with TOTS,
or
"Teraflops Off the Shelf." In the near future, research labs and commercial
companies with smaller budgets may be able to reap the benefits of such
processing through the use of MVAPICH. The Mac system at VA Tech is evidence
of such cost effective supercomputing.
|