Course Outline and Lecture Notes

Copies of slides presented at the lectures will be provided below in PDF and PostScript (PS) format.

• Introduction to Distributed and High-Performance Computing:
  What is DHPC; Milestones in DHPC history; Some DHPC applications.
  PDF | PS

• High-Performance Computing architectures:
  Overview of the major classes of HPC architectures and their evolution.
  PDF | PS

• Parallel programming models and performance analysis:
  Parameterisation, modelling, performance analysis, efficiency, and benchmarking of DHPC systems.
  PDF | PS

• Programming parallel computers:
  Overview of parallel programming, parallel languages, parallelizing compilers, message passing and data parallel programming models.
  PDF | PS

• Message passing programming and MPI:
  Uses; historical background and use on MIMD machines; current implementations; programming using the Message Passing Interface (MPI).
  PDF | PS

• Data parallel programming and HPF
  Data parallel programming paradigm; historical background and use on SIMD machines; array syntax; Fortran 90 and High Performance Fortran (HPF).
  PDF | PS

• Shared memory programming, threads and OpenMP
  Use of shared memory machines; threads; mutual exclusion; locks, semaphores and monitors; parallel Java; programming using OpenMP.
  PDF | PS

• Case Study - Monte Carlo Simulation of the Ising Model:
  Case study from computational physics; different approaches to parallelism; regular vs irregular problems; techniques and tricks for parallel implementation in MPI, HPF, OpenMP and threads.
  PDF | PS

• High-performance distributed computing:
  Distributed and concurrent computing on loosely coupled distributed systems; motivation and applications; transparency and metacomputing; networks and clusters of workstations; cluster management systems.
  PDF | PS

• Distributed computing middleware:
  Middleware; RPC; DCE; CORBA; Java RMI.
  • Middleware, DCE: PDF | PS
  • CORBA: PS | HTML
  • Java RMI: PDF | PS

• Time and ordering in distributed systems:
  The problem of time and ordering in distributed systems; vector time; fault tolerance; Byzantine Generals problem.
  PDF | PPT

• Grid computing:
  The Grid; Grid computing (metacomputing over wide-area networks); grid computing environments (Globus, Legion, DISCWorld, ...); Internet computing (SETI@Home, etc).
  • Grid computing: PDF | PS
  • DISCWorld: PDF | PS
  • Internet computing: PDF | PS

Slides for the 2000 DHPC course are also available.