1. … begin …

2. Parallel Computing: What is it good for? William M. Jones, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Computer Science Department Coastal Carolina University

3. What is Parallel Computing? (and why do we need it?) Concurrently using multiple compute resources: Solve problems faster Solve larger problems Solve problems with greater realism and fidelity Target science and engineering needs

4. The (new) Scientific Method Prediction Simulation Experiment Observation Theory

5. Simulation-based Design and Analysis

6. Weather Prediction

7. Astrophysics

8. Entertainment

9. So how do we start? Lots of well-designed HARDWARE + Well-written SOFTWARE = A Good Start

10. We’ve Come A Long Way

11. Progress

13. Basic Architecture SMP – Shared Memory

14. Distributed Memory

15. Hybrid Model

16. Multi-core + ILP + VLIW + Pipelining + Vector Units = Lots of power at multiple hierarchical levels  Many levels of potential parallelism

17. But What About Software? … applications … … compilers … … debuggers … … performance analyzers … How do we even start to write a program that could run on machines like these?

18. “First you must unlearn that which you have learned.” (at least partially) … the sequential paradigm …

19. New (better) Way of Thinking … the parallel paradigm …

20. Domain Decomposition

21. Functional Decomposition

22. So, how much faster can we make it? What are the limits to the performance improvement?

26. Questions?