Deployment of a Hippi-Based Distributed Supercomputing Environment at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center

Abstract

We discuss the development and implementation of a component of a heterogeneous supercomputing environment at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC). This component, built upon a CRAY Y-W/832, a Thinking Machines CM-2, and HiPPI communications channel, allows applications to be partitioned between the two supercomputers. Development work included the design of a user environment and performance analysis of the resulting system. Implementation involved tackling communications and data presentation issues in the heterogeneous environment. This work provides a case study of a heterogeneous supercomputing environment, showing strengths and weaknesses of currently available technology along with directions for future development.