| Author(s) |
Karoly Bosa
Andreas Langegger
Thomas Leitner
Bernhard Moser
Szilárd Páll
Wolfgang Schreiner
Volkmar Wieser
Wolfram Wöß
|
| Title |
Parallel, distributed, and grid computing |
| Typ |
Inbook |
| Month |
June |
| Year |
2009 |
| Edition |
1st Edition |
| Chapter |
Parallel, distributed, and grid computing |
| Pages |
333-378 |
| Editor(s) |
B. Buchberger, M. Affenzeller, A. Ferscha, M. Haller, T. Jebelean, E.P. Klement, P. Paule, G. Pomberger, W. Schreiner, R. Stubenrauch, R. Wagner, G. Weiß, W. Windsteiger |
| Publisher |
Springer |
| ISBN |
978-3-642-02126-8 |
| SCCH # |
0908 |
| The core goal of parallel computing is to speedup computations by executing
independent computational tasks concurrently (“in parallel”) on multiple
units in a processor, on multiple processors in a computer, or on multiple
networked computers which may be even spread across large geographical
scales (distributed and grid computing); it is the dominant principle behind
“supercomputing” respectively “high performance computing”.
For several decades, the density of transistors on a computer chip has
doubled every 18–24 months (“Moore’s Law”); until recently, this rate could
be directly transformed into a corresponding increase of a processor’s clock
frequency and thus into an automatic performance gain for sequential programs.
However, since also a processor’s power consumption increases with
its clock frequency, this strategy of “frequency scaling” became ultimately
unsustainable: since 2004 clock frequencies have remained essentially stable
and additional transistors have been primarily used to build multiple processors
on a single chip (multi-core processors). Today therefore every kind of
software (not only “scientific” one) must be written in a parallel style to profit
from newer computer hardware. |