High Performance Computing In Classroom Environment
- Conference
- Location
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Chicago, Illinois
- Publication Date
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June 18, 2006
- Start Date
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June 18, 2006
- End Date
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June 21, 2006
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Engineering Technology
- Page Count
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11
- Page Numbers
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11.686.1 - 11.686.11
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--959
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/959
- Download Count
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385
Paper Authors
Farid Farahmand Central Connecticut State University
F. Farahmand is currently with the Computer Electronics and Graphics Technology department at Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT. He is a recent Ph.D. graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas. He has several years of teaching and industry experience combined with research background in optical and sensor networks.
Veeramuthu Rajaravivarma Central Connecticut State University
V. Rajaravivarma is currently with the Computer Electronics and Graphics Technology department at Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT. Previously, he was with Tennessee State University, Morehead State University, and North Carolina A&T State University.
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
High Performance Computing in Classroom Environment
Abstract The need for high performance computing continues to grow in the coming years. Such needs are no longer limited to highly advanced scientific organizations. Today, many educational and business communities also desire high computational power to expand their activities and maintain their services. However, the high cost of a single supercomputer with massive multi-processing power makes them infeasible for many such users. An alternative approach to high performance computing is computer clustering, which provides practical and feasible infrastructure to accommodate high computational power. The key concept in computer clustering is to unify available computing resources. Recently, many different organizations, including corporations and universities, have been implementing the cluster computing. Consequently, learning and understanding the basics of cluster computing can be considered as a valuable academic investment for IT and technology students.
The main purpose of this paper is to present a practical demonstration of computer clustering. We introduce a simple and easy-to-use Windows-based graphical software toolkit, called Paloma (Parallel Local Message-passing Adaptor), which was developed by Advanced Internet Technology Lab at CCSU. Paloma allows students to easily create a computer cluster using multiple PCs interconnected to each other via LAN or Ethernet. Through Paloma’s integrated GUI and its performance monitoring capacity, the students will understand the motivation for high performance computing, advantages of computer clustering, as well as, the challenges and limitations of a cluster system. Flexibility of Paloma allows students to use it outside the classroom environment and develop their own what-if scenarios. In this paper we describe a number of test cases for laboratory experiments, which appeared to be very attractive to our students. Furthermore, we discuss possible extensions to these demonstrations and briefly outline our future plans for more sophisticated benchmarks and graphical features for Paloma to improve its educational aspect.
Introduction Today’s ever-growing demand for information and services has led academic and industrial communities to seek for high computing power at reasonable cost. The desire for higher computational power may be due to many reasons, such as real time constraints (completing a task within a certain time period), throughput (processing many related tasks together), or memory (delivering an efficient way to provide large amount of memory) [1]. Thus, the computer intensive applications are no longer limited to a few scientific communities. In fact, emerging commercial applications such as simulating mechanical devices, analyzing electronic circuits, investigating manufacturing process, modeling chemical reactions, collecting and processing financial transactions, offering
Farahmand, F., & Rajaravivarma, V. (2006, June), High Performance Computing In Classroom Environment Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--959
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