CS140 Assignment 1: Describe a Parallel Application

This is a warm-up exercise just to look around and find some examples of how parallel computers are used.

Due January 15, 2008

Problem

Search the web to find a description of an application problem in which parallel computers have been used. Build your own web page briefly describing (1) the application, (2) how it uses parallelism, and (3) your frank assessment of its successes and weaknesses.

Your writeup should be at least two or three paragraphs long, and you should answer as many of the following questions as you can. You don't have to answer all the questions, but you should say what you find interesting or noteworthy about the application you describe.

• What is the scientific or engineering problem being solved?
• Who did it?
• What kind of parallel computer did they use?
• What programming language, tools, and/or libraries did they use?
• How did they measure and describe the performance of their code? How well did it perform?
• How big was the largest problem they ran, and how many processors did it run on?

Submission

Mail the URL for your web page to both John and Nick. We will post links to everyone's submissions on the course web page.

Resources

Besides a general Google search, you may want to start looking from

• The San Diego Supercomputing Center.
• NERSC, the DOE supercomputing center at Lawrence Berkeley Labs.
• The Columbia machine at NASA Ames Research Center.
• The California Nanosystems Institute here at UCSB.
• The annual Supercomputing Conference.