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TCSC Newsletters Volume 1 No.2

Comments From the Editor - Dan Hyde, Bucknell University

The IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Cluster Computing (TFCC) has been in existence for almost a year. CO-Chair Rajkumar Buyya received confirmation of the formation of TFCC from the IEEE Computer Society Technical Activities Board last December 17, 1998. And what a fruitful year it has been for TFCC!! Much of our activity is reflected in this the second TFCC Newsletter.

Included below is the Executive Summary and link to the TFCC Annual Report. Also, find a link to a draft of TFCC's White Paper

See below for details on our first conference IWCC'99 in Melbourne, Australia, December 2, 1999. TFCC had a presence at SuperComputing '99 (SC'99) with two BOFs. We encourage you to participate in our second conference CLUSTER 2000 at Technische Universität Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany, November 28 - December 2, 2000. Many other conferences and workshops are listed as well.

TFCC's Educational Promotion Program for Book Donations has been very successful with four books and two journals.

See especially the new book SCI: Scalable Coherent Interface: Architecture and Software for High-Performance Compute Clusters edited by Hermann Hellwagner and Alexander Reinefeld.

See the two short articles on System I/O Effort Renamed InfiniBandTM Trade Association and Sandia's CPLant Cluster Ranked 44th in Top 500 List. Please note that I am seeking short articles on hot topics in cluster computing for the April, 2000 TFCC Newsletter.

I view the TFCC Newsletter as an on-line dynamic document. Therefore, my strategy as Newsletter Editor has been to provide useful links to information in an organized manner. I have organized each Newsletter to be printed as a single document. If any of you have comments or suggestions on the format or contents, please send me a note.

Dan

Announcements about TFCC Activities and Achievements


Conference Announcements


Call for Papers - Conferences

  • HPC ASIA 2000, The Fourth International Conference/Exhibition on High-Performance Computing in Asia-Pacific Region
    May 14-17, 2000, Beijing, China
    URL: http://www.cs.wm.edu/hpcs/HPCAsia2000.htm

    Contributed Papers Due: EXTENDED to November 15, 1999 (was October 25)

     

  • 5th Workshop on Optics and Computer Science (WOCS) held in conjunction with IPDPS 2000, Cancun, Mexico, May 1-5, 2000
    Submission deadline: 20 November 1999
    URL: http://ww.eecis.udel.edu/~kiamilev/wocs2000/

     

  • 3rd international workshop PC-NOW 2000 held in conjunction with IPDPS 2000, Cancun, Mexico, May 1-5, 2000
    Submission deadline: 15 October 1999
    URL:http://www.disi.unige.it/person/ChiolaG/pcnow00/

     

  • 9th Heterogeneous Computing Workshop (HCW 2000) held in conjunction with IPDPS 2000, Cancun, Mexico, May 1-5, 2000
    Submission deadline: 8 October 1999
    URL: http://myrtle.cs.umanitoba.ca/hcw

     

  • Eighth International Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Real-Time Systems (WPDRTS 2000) held in conjunction with IPDPS 2000, Cancun, Mexico, May 1-5, 2000
    Submission deadline: 15 November 1999 - extended to 1 DECEMBER 1999
    URL: http://csci.uark.edu/~aapon/wpdrts2000/

     

  • High-Performance Computing with Linux Platforms (HPC Linux 2000) in conjunction with HPC-ASIA 2000, May 14-17, 2000, Beijing, China
    Submission deadline: 15 November 1999
    URL: http://www.csis.hku.hk/~clwang/HPCLinux2000.html

     

  • Asia-Pacific Symposium on Cluster Computing (APSC 2000) in conjunction with HPCAsia2000, May 14-17, 2000, Beijing, China
    Submission deadline: 30 October 1999 - extended to 15 November 1999
    URL: http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/apscc2000/

     

  • The 2000 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA'2000),June 26 - 29, 2000, Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
    Submission deadline: 28 February 2000
    URL: http://www.cps.udayton.edu/faculty/pan/pdpta

     

  • Workshop on Cluster Computing for Internet Applications (CCIA2000)in conjunction with The 7th IEEE International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS'2000) at Iwate Prefectural University, Iwate, Japan, July 4-7, 2000.
    Submission deadline: 31 December 1999
    URL: http://www.cs.nthu.edu.tw/~king/CCIA2000.html

     

  • International Workshop on Distributed Real-Time Systems (IWDRS) in conjunction with The 20th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2000) Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, April, 10 - 13, 2000
    Submission deadline: 1 December 1999
    URL: http://calab.kaist.ac.kr/Conf/IWDRS2000

     

  • European Parallel Computing Conference (Euro-Par 2000) 29 August to 1 September 2000, Munich, Germany
    Submission deadline: 31 January 2000
    URL: http://wwwbode.in.tum.de/~europar/

     

  • Euro-Par 2000 Cluster Computing Workshop as part of European Parallel Computing Conference (Euro-Par 2000) 29 August to 1 September 2000, Munich, Germany
    Submission deadline: 31 January 2000
    URL: http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/EuroParCluster2000/

     

  • Cluster Computing Technologies, Environments, and Applications (CC-TEA) at 2000 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA 2000) 26 - 29 June 2000, Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
    Submission deadline: 28 February 2000
    URL: http://ceng.usc.edu/~hjin/cc-tea2000.html

     

  • High Performance Computing in Chem-, Bio- and Medical Informatics special session at 2000 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA'2000), June 26 - 29, 2000 Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
    Submission Deadline: 10 March 2000
    Contact: Zina Ben Miled
    URL: http://compeng1.sl.iupui.edu/callfor.htm

     

  • IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (CLUSTER 2000)Technische Universität Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany, November 28 - December 2, 2000
    Submission deadline: 7 June 2000
    URL: http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/informatik/RA/cluster2000/index.htm

     

  • ACM 2000 Java Grande Conference Sponsored by ACM SIGPLAN San Francisco, California, June 3-4, 2000
    Submission deadline: 10 January 2000
    URL: http://www.extreme.indiana.edu/java00

     

  • 3rd International Conference on SCI-based Technology and Research (SCI-Europe 2000) held in conjunction with The European Conference on Parallel Computing (Euro-Par 2000) Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany, August 29th-30th, 2000
    Papers due: 1 March 2000
    URL: http://wwwbode.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/events/scieurope2000/index.html


Call for Papers - Journals


Special Issues on Cluster Computing in Journals

  • Parallel Computing on Networks of Computers
    special issue of Informatica: an International Journal of Computing and Informatics, Vol. 23 No. 1, 1999.
    Edited by Rajkumar Buyya and Marcin Paprzycki
    URL: http://ai.ijs.si/informatica/


Workshops


Tutorials


Book Announcements

  • High Performance Cluster Computing: Architectures and Systems, Volume 1, Edited by Rajkumar Buyya, Prentice Hall, NJ, USA, 1999.

    Clustering is becoming increasingly popular, as cluster systems can deliver better performance than traditional mainframes and supercomputers at a much lower hardware cost. They can also offer high performance, scalability and high availability to organizations. This comprehensive guide book covers every key issue associated with high-performance cluster computing such as networking, light-weight protocols, resource management systems, representative cluster computing systems. Topics covered include cluster middleware, single system image, active messages, process migration and load balancing, metacomputing, Beowulf cluster, and much more.

    High Performance Cluster Computing: Programming and Applications, Volume 2, Edited by Rajkumar Buyya, Prentice Hall, NJ, USA, 1999.

    This is the only comprehensive source for up-to-the-minute research on programming and applications for state-of-the-art highly-parallel "commodity supercomputers." The book is organized into three areas: programming, environments and development tools; Java as a language of choice for development in highly parallel systems; and state-of-the-art high performance algorithms and applications. All three areas have seen major advances in recent years-and in all three areas, this book offers unprecedented breadth and depth. Now, in this second volume, Rajkumar Buyya brings together contributions from some 30 leaders, addressing the field's most critical programming and applications challenges.

    More information and additional resources at http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/cluster/index.html

  • SCI: Scalable Coherent Interface: Architecture and Software for High-Performance Compute Clusters edited by Hermann Hellwagner and Alexander Reinefeld, Springer State-of-the-Art Surveys LNCS 1734, 1999. ISBN 3-540-66696-6.
    http://www.springer.de/cgi-bin/search_book.pl?isbn=3-540-66696-6


Product Announcements


New Web Sites on Cluster Computing


Short Articles

  • System I/O Effort Renamed InfiniBandTM Trade Association

    By Dan Hyde
    Department of Computer Science
    Bucknell University
    November 30, 1999

    A new switched-fabric input/output (I/O) connectivity standards group formerly known as System I/O has been recently renamed the InfiniBandTM Trade Association. The new organization is led by seven steering companies: Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems. Sponsoring companies include 3Com, Adaptec, Cisco, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, Lucent, NEC and Nortel Networks. Since another thirteen companies are also members, the Association has wide representation within the industry. The Association states it is dedicated to developing a new common I/O specification to deliver a channel based, switched fabric technology that the entire industry can adopt.

    The players in the industry are moving quickly to replace the existing shared bus I/O bottleneck. Back in August, 1999, seven of the computer industry's leading companies, Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems merged the best ideas of the Future I/O (FIO) and Next Generation I/O (NGIO) input/output architectures into one called System I/O. Two months later in October, 1999, these same seven companies formed the steering members of the new InfiniBandTM Trade Association. The Association claims to be on schedule to deliver a comprehensive draft specification to members by the end of 1999. A final release specification is targeted for early 2000 and initial products based on the specification are expected to be in production in 2001.

    The new initiative is to provide one, powerful and scalable I/O architecture for the computer industry. The Association is developing an industry specification for a channel-based, switched fabric architecture that provides a scalable performance range of 500MB/s to 6GB/s per link, meeting the needs from entry level to high-end enterprise systems.

    Of interest to TFCC members is that the initiative will provide an industry-standard for a system area network (SAN) fabric for efficient support of both conventional server I/O and inter-processor communication within parallel clusters.

    Details of the specification aren't yet available because it's still being drafted. However, one can gleam some ideas from the presentations of the TFCC Sponsored Birds of a Feather (BOF) Session on High Speed Interconnects for COTS Cluster Computing at Super Computing '99, Portland, Oregon, USA on November 16, 1999. The presentations are on-line at http://www.atoll-net.de/news-bofsc99.html

    It is clear to many in the industry that there will be dramatic increases in I/O requirements in the near future. And current bus-based I/O architectures such as PCI or its extension PCI-X won't hack it. The new specification seems to be aiming at a channel-based I/O architecture connecting two address spaces. Protected direct memory access (DMA) engines are driven by a work queue at each end. The channel communication uses packet switching and is controlled by a Host Channel Adaptor (HCA) and a Target Channel Adaptor (TCA) driven by a second work queue.

    Hints from TFCC member Greg Pfister of IBM, who is actively involved in the specification, indicate that InfiniBandTM's target includes the "mass market" (high volume and cheap) and it's possible that the necessary components will eventually be on processor chips.

    More information on InfiniBandTM is available at http://www.sysio.org/.

     

  • Sandia's CPLant Cluster Ranked 44th in Top 500 List

    By Dan Hyde
    Department of Computer Science
    Bucknell University
    November 30, 1999

    On November 11, 1999 for SuperComputing '99, Jack Dongarra of University of Tennessee, and Hans-Werner Meuer of Mannheim University published the 14th version of the TOP 500 Supercomputing Sites (http://www.top500.org/). Interestingly, the machine ranked 44th is described as "Self-made"! Two other "Self-made" or build-your-own computing clusters are listed as well. Computing clusters have moved into the big ring!

    The 44th entry is held by the CPlant cluster of Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque , New Mexico, USA (http://www.cs.sandia.gov/cplant/). The compute partition of the Computational Plant (CPLANT) is composed of 592 Compaq XP1000 workstations, each of which contains:

     

    • 500 MHz Alpha 21264 microprocessor
    • 256 MB ECC SDRAM
    • 4 MB L3 cache
    • 10/100BaseTx-integrated ethernet

    The 592 compute node workstations are connected with Myricom's Myrinet gigabit networking hardware. Each node contains a 64-bit, 33 MHz Myrinet LANai-7 network interface card connected to a 16-port SAN/LAN switch.

    The ranking of the TOP 500 is determined by the best Linpack benchmark performance. A 580 node CPlant performed at a RMAX of 232.6 GFLOPS compared to the number one ranking of the Intel-constructed ASCI Red also at Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque (RMAX of 2379.6 GFLOPS). The other two "Self-made" Top 500 machines are the Avalon Cluster of Los Alamos National Laboratory (ranked 265th at RMAX of 48.6 GFLOPS) (http://cnls.lanl.gov/avalon/) and the Parnass2 Cluster at University Bonn (ranked 454th at RMAX of 34.23 GFLOPS) (http://wwwwissrech.iam.uni-bonn.de/research/projects/parnass).