Scalable parallel systems: past, present and future (from an IBM perspective)

Author

Snir, Marc

Author_Institution

IBM Thomas J. Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

27-29 Oct 1996

Firstpage

33

Lastpage

35

Abstract

We survey in this paper the evolution of scalable parallel computers, from the perspective of the IBM SP product line. To achieve success in the marketplace, the SP had to be more than a bunch of rack-mounted workstations, connected with a LAN. A high-performance interconnect is key to parallel performance. The current, second generation SP switch, supports a bandwidth of 150 MB/s in each direction per node

Keywords

LAN interconnection; mainframes; multiprocessor interconnection networks; optical computing; optical interconnections; parallel architectures; parallel machines; IBM SP product line; IBM perspective; LAN; high-performance interconnect; optical computer architecture; parallel performance; rack-mounted workstations; scalable parallel computers; scalable parallel systems; second generation SP switch; shared memory systems; Application software; Bandwidth; Computational modeling; Computer simulation; Concurrent computing; Engines; Microprocessors; Parallel processing; Quantum computing; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Massively Parallel Processing Using Optical Interconnections, 1996., Proceedings of the Third International Conference on

Conference_Location

Maui, HI

Print_ISBN

0-8186-7591-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MPPOI.1996.559033

Filename

559033