Grid Computing: eBig HPC session this week

On Thursday, May 18th Carol Thompson Eidt will be presenting on HPC application development. You can signup for the session on eBig. And to prepare for the session (by getting an overview of MPI and CCS) I recommend you read Built For Speed: Develop Turbocharged Apps For Windows Compute Cluster Server.

There are many differences between the Digipede approach and Microsoft’s HPC approach and the two different methodologies can work together on the same systems. Used together the methodologies provide you with an entire tool chest of solutions to the different types of computational problems grid computing and HPC computing target.

CSS
- Uses the Message Passing Interface (MPI)
- Can share data across processes on a cluster
- No .NET Framework class library available for MPI
- Can execute .NET code in serial
- Only runs on x64 processors, but can support both 32 bit and 64 bit applications

Digipede
- Uses .NET to distribute objects via the Digipede Framework SDK
- Does not share data between objects, but doesn’t stop a developer from adding that functionality
- Complete support for .NET and COM
- Executes .NET code in parallel
- Runs on any Windows OS from Windows XP forward.

Both methodologies will distribute executables and provide a grid infrastructure. Like many tools they may look similar at first glance but when you start using them you’ll find that they are designed for different problems. You just need to understand what your HPC/grid needs are and then use the appropriate tool.

I haven’t developed anything on CCS, I’ve just been reading, so I’m really looking forward to Thursday’s presentation. If I learn anything new I'll write a post. See you there.

Technorati tags: grid computing, HPC, CCS, cluster computing, MPI, Microsoft, .NET, Digipede