🚀 go-pugleaf

May, 1994

Contact: trollius@tbag.osc.edu
or Greg Burns, 614-292-9248
Ohio Supercomputer Center Parallel Processing Development Group
Columbus, Ohio

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Full MPI Standard Implementation for LAM, a UNIX Cluster Computing Environment
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The Parallel Processing Development Group at the Ohio Supercomputer Center
(OSC) announces the general release of a full MPI standard implementation
for LAM, a UNIX cluster computing environment. The software is available in
source code form under the terms of the GNU general license (V2).
Distribution is via anonymous ftp from tbag.osc.edu under pub/lam.

The MPI key features include standard, buffered, synchronous, and ready
communication modes; hierarchical derived datatypes; intercommunicators;
support for persistent communication requests; efficient mapping to LAM
message passing; robust error handling, including application cleanup on
MPI_Abort(); non-polling MPI_Wait*() calls; and heterogeneous UNIX
clusters.

In addition, commands are provided to monitor and control the messages and
processes of an application. Message information includes source and
destination ranks, tag, length, and context ID (representing the
communicator used). Process information includes the MPI function called
and its key parameters. Processes can be paused, resumed, or terminated,
and buffered messages can be deleted. This level of control and monitoring
is a powerful tool assisting in application development. 

MPI applications can be started either from the command line or from a
schema file. This provides the flexibility required by MIMD programs while
maintaining ease of use for SPMD applications. 

In addition to MPI, LAM provides a rich environment for developing
sophisticated parallel tools and applications. It supports two additional
APIs, namely PVM and LAM's native interface, along with commands to fully
monitor and control applications written using them. 

Additional LAM Features:

- PVM compatibility
- parallel I/O
- dynamic process groups
- micro-kernel, multi-process, modular structure - easy transition to
dedicated h/w

The factory default software supports the following platforms: 

Sun 4 (sparc), SunOS 4.1.3
Sun 4 (sparc), Solaris 2.3
SGI IRIX 4.0.5
IBM RS/6000, AIX v3r2
DEC AXP, OSF/1 V1.3

Documentation

There are user guides for C and Fortran programmers as well as a complete
set of manual pages covering every function and command program. 

-=-

LAM is a subset of Trollius, an environment for UNIX clusters + MPP.
Trollius was originally developed at the Cornell Theory Center. Trollius is
a trademark of The Ohio State University and the Cornell Research
Foundation.

LAM development was sponsored by OSC, OSU, Cray Research Inc., and Alex
Informatique.

-end