🚀 go-pugleaf

Recently on this group there was a discussion about the advantages
and disadvantages of parallel programming platforms and concepts
like p4, PVM and LINDA. 

We want to draw the attention of this group to a similar approach
called <The Parform> and developed at the University of Zurich.
It is a parallel proramming model based on message passing and presently
implemented in a network of UNIX workstations. Efficient ports to
multiprocessor systems are planned for the near future. In principle
it may be compared to p4 and PVM, but The Parform has a number of 
interesting advantages:

  ** Heterogeneous prepartitioning of tasks
  ** Dynamic load balancing
  ** Very fast startup
  ** Direct and fast message transfer without demon activities
     and message copying
  ** Flexible and fast startup and shutdown procedures
  ** Support for heterogeneous architectures
  ** SPMD programming model

At claude.ifi.unizh.ch you can retrieve /pub/techreports/ifi-92.07.ps.Z
a technical report describing the new features and speedups of an 
early version of The Parform. A more detailed report on the application
and user interface of the present version will be available soon.  

For more information read the mentioned technical report or contact
cap@ifi.unizh.ch.
-- 
* Dr. Clemens H. CAP               cap@ifi.unizh.ch        
* Dept. of Computer Science        Phone +(1) 257-4326  (office)
* University of Zurich             Phone +(1) 322 02 19  (home)
* Winterthurerstr. 190             Fax   +(1) 363 00 35